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trace Santosh's journey from a business family to a Lead Engineer, driven by a passion for technology and the influential ethos of Chuck Norris in 'Walker, Texas Ranger'.","f47c0fb4-265d-4cf2-bb3f-ce7873894ab6",44,[161,164,167],{"name":162,"url":163},"John Daniels","https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwdaniels/",{"name":165,"url":166},"Pedro Pizarro","https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedropizarrojr/",{"name":168,"url":169},"Santosh Ahuja","https://www.linkedin.com/in/santoshnahuja/","2023-12-22","Santosh Ahuja, Lead Engineer at Optum","\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: The code that Chuck Norris followed in the series Walker the Texas Ranger, you know, he the fact that he was so righteous, he was always honorable, and, and plus he had a bunch of flashy kicks. I was absolutely, drawn, to that person's personality and the role he played.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Thank you, Santosh, for joining us today for an interview with us. We really wanted to to get to know you, you know, get get to know a little bit more about your background, maybe advice you have for other developers, and really use this podcast to, as a mindshare, for the community and and to learn a bit more about your background as well and and share that with the world. Right? You know, as you're a lead engineer at Optum, we're just really excited to to hear about your journey and, how you got here, what you're doing, currently, and and where you look to go in the future. So, if you'd like to introduce yourself and maybe a a brief on your background, we can get right into into, talking about it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: Yeah. So hello. My name is, Santosh Abuja, and I currently work as a lead engineer at Optum, and I've been there for the last 2 years now. I also run my own consulting firm. It's called App Resilience, and, I have a couple of customers, so that's the direction I'm leading into.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>My background is predominantly I come from a, you know, business family. I have I completed my bachelor's in, in business and accounting. I did a bunch of courses in computers, right when I was in my 10th grade, but I soon landed a job as an engineer. And then from, there on, there's there's been no looking back, and, I'm here right now in in this country, in this beautiful country, called the United States, where people come to pursue their dreams, where people come to work with the best. And I've also had the fortune of, getting my master's done, at Purdue.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that's a big background.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Yeah. I'd love to, I myself, you know, I have a a developer background a little bit, and I'm always curious to hear how people got into engineering and development. Sometimes people played with specific toys when they were younger. Sometimes they watched specific TV shows or movies that got them interested. So I'm I'm really curious to kind of hear that beginning, entry into engineering and development.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What was it that got you interested? Was anyone a mentor of yourself, more could we would you be able to dive a little bit more into the beginning stages of your exploration into engineering?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: So it started when I was, you know, you could say young, you know, when you're young, when you're in your teens, you you're really trying to find out you're really trying to find out what you wanna do and carve a path for yourself, but you also have a little bit of that herd mentality. Right? You have a bunch of guys who start playing football and you start playing football with them. They start playing tennis. You start playing tennis with them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I had a bunch of friends. They were from, you know, middle class families and they had, their path carved out for them. They had their parents who instilled in them a strong sense of, purpose in their life, education, and get really high paying jobs. I came from a business family and that was not the path for me. I already had a really cushioned, comfortable, and a clear path of taking on my family business.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, you know, because I had a bunch of friends who had a different path and, I just hung out with them a lot more. And, on one summer and every summer, they would always preoccupy themselves with some sort of a course in order to gather skills that maybe, you know, English speaking course or typewriting course and stuff like that. So that came a summer, I guess, in my 10th grade around when I was 13 or 14. A bunch of my friends enrolled in a computer class. And, really, it's because of them I owe my career to them because it's because of them I I joined that computer class and I really did well.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Never saw computer science as a discipline of engineering, until I saw the amount of math that played an important role, in that, you know, in that in that in that profession. So that's how it started. And then what happened because I did a bunch of courses in computer science. I took up I took up a I took up a degree in business because, you know, my parents want me to, and, you know, we come from a background where we do a lot of things just to please our parents and our family and kinda did that, but also it had a minor in computer science. And I really did well, in that course.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So after that, I, you know, I was still going back and, you know, was with my family, took on the family family business, run it for a while. But at the same time, my passion for computer science and programming grew. I continued to take a bunch of courses just because I was really, really interested in it, just because I had fun solving problems. And it so happened that, I just hung up with a bunch of friends when they were going for an interview, and I just happened to get selected. And, I really took on the job, and I haven't, in this I haven't looked back ever since.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I was still within the same city, so my parents were okay with me going in a different direction for a while, hoping that I would find the going really tough, and I would just come back to the to the comfy life that I that I had. So that's how I got into engineering.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: That's awesome. That that your path sounds like, you know, you really hung out with a good group of friends, very motivated high schoolers. Mhmm. Very different from from my upbringing of growing up with a bunch of rascals just getting into shenanigans. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You sound like a very motivated, group of folks. Was that I know you've bounced around to a few different countries, and now you're here in the US. Was that back in India? Was that in Canada? Tell us a little bit about your your journey in\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: in my career. Back in India. So I did I also had a bunch of friends who who were rascals and I got into all all different kind of shenanigans, but I knew that that kind of thing wouldn't get me too far. So I kind of played a safe role. I had my eggs in different baskets, if you will.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, and really, and also, you know, because of the sports background, I always had the sense of doing well, have a bunch of friends who I can compete with mentally, physically, and all that all that stuff. So I started back in a small town in India called Kaimatar, and, the short form is Kwendi. It's really known. It's a it's a big hub for educational, for education, a lot of universities out there. And I started with a company, that made software for British Telecom.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It was that was that was the only software company in the city and was really, really, really, really hard to get into, that company. But I started because of my curiosity, I started learning a bunch of courses really fast, and, I started teaching in different universities. That's what I did when I didn't get jobs and I eventually got a gig with them. And, that's how it started. So before it was not until a few years later that I really got a chance to go to Canada to work for some web companies, because I started with a company, you know, who were developing software for British Telecom.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I stayed with the same domain, did a lot of embedded programming, and then soon got attracted to a couple of companies who started doing a lot of VoIP, and voice or IP. And then, that landed me to Canada because Canada had Canada had a lot of up and coming, big, white companies. And some of the companies were really, paving the way for innovation and how, video and audio was being streamed over a call and how all these calls that we traditionally do with COPPA lines were really becoming digital. Right? So I spent quite some time in Canada working there, working for somebody, and that was really an eye opener.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, because there again, I saw a really, I saw a lot of top engineers. I learned a lot of them, learned learned a lot from them, and that really proved me as a person, as an engineer. I then came back because I was not a permanent position, in Canada. I I was really doing work for an Indian company, but I was engaging with a bunch of innovators in Canada and working in developing some products. And then I came back and, I I was at a point where I was switching jobs again.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then I worked for a company, that was Venus out of Richardson. And when Richardson was called, Telecom called it out. We do it. Right? A lot of telecom companies in Richardson, like, NCI and there's AT and T over here that is also, you know, Texas Instruments, both hardware in terms of software and things like that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, I started working for this company, and then, this company was had the business of a startup, the whole, you know, the whole it was really it was really a technical company at the core. Even the founders were past architects of some really successful startups and things like that. So when I joined this company, they were an exclusive shop of a big up and coming start up. And this start up had and this startup was based out of Richardson and the founders of this startup had senior entrepreneurs. They had, they had a history of building successful products and with multimillion dollar exits, like 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I got a chance to work pretty early on with such a company. I was core engineer, but then they also had a bunch of engineers here, and I really got a chance to work with some of the really good engineers from companies like Nortel, Cisco, you know, that and that really, again, grew me as a person. It pushed me. I I developed my skills a lot. Pretty much been with the same enough that I was pretty much the same company.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>As over the years, this company transformed itself into a full fledged consulting company making software for the web, the mobile, we literally saw an age where, mobile devices, change from mono those monoprint screens to really Apple like large screens with large real estate, and you would really touch on that screen and see things happen. Right? So you got into that smart, smartphone age and, where these our phones really started taking place our traditional desktops. Traditionally, we had desktop. We've installed different apps on them, played different games on them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Now we're getting into an age where we could do all these things on smartphones. And that's when, this company started making apps, saw the opportunity, started making apps for, a lot of, you know, different kind of smartphones.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Yeah. It's it sounds to me like there's a there's a common thread that kind of weaves its way throughout your life and your career. I'd like to kinda take that road for a second. You talked about when you were younger, and you had this this opportunity to kind of follow the footsteps of your family, which to me, honestly, sounds like a safe route. And I feel like I feel like for those of us who are in technology, we traditionally don't take the safe route.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think part of being in technology and engineering and development is kind of finding a way to solve a a problem in a different way. You come across an issue and there's there might be a safe route where you can do something, but why not take a different route, especially if that different route leads you in fun and unexpected directions. So you had this opportunity when you were younger to follow in a safe path, but you kind of chose the you you went along with your friends. You you succumb to peer pressure, and you went into the engineering route. And it kinda sounds like you also went that route as you started to get into your career as well.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You you made your way to a small start up where there was a lot more excitement, a lot more risk. There was a lot more what ifs and unknowns. But in the end, it really kind of was the best choice for you, and that kind of stemmed back to your childhood. So in your opinion and, you know, there's there's people out there watching who have this decision all the time. Do they go the safe route?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Do they go the more adventurous route? That's that might be more risky. Do you find that being an engineer in in technology, that is the the better route to go, to be a little bit more daring, to take more risks, you know, not only professionally, but also personally? Is that something that you feel has led you leaps and bounds to where you are now and you'd be in a completely different place if you had gone the safe route?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: Yeah. You know, the answer I think the right answer to that is partly I've I've never been, you know, I've always, you know, I have, I've always been encouraged to take risks, but also the other part is I've always followed my passion and my intuition. So I always have a suggestion saying that never chase money, chase your passion. If you have an intrinsic feeling, that pushes you towards a certain direction, just as long as your intentions are honest, you're honorable in your, in your in your intentions and in your goal, you're you're gonna be fine. So that's what led me to take the decisions that I, that I took.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I always also, there was always a saying that when you join with us, when you join a smaller company, you get a lot more responsibilities. There's a lot of lot more opportunities to take more responsibilities and you kind of mature faster. The other part is also with some of the smaller consulting companies, they're they can't compete with larger companies. They're really jumping on every kind of opportunities that they get. So even if they're, they're risky opportunities and, I've always been someone who's I haven't I've never thought too much.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>When I look at an endeavor, I really look at what it offers me in terms of growth. I look at it on the challenges, on the on the challenges that it poses and the opportunities to learn. I don't get in the political side of what if I fail or if I fail, how would I be perceived? What do I look at? Would I make a fool of myself?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's not something that I really thought. It's okay to fail, but it's important in my view to always take up opportunities and, risks ahead as long as you are honest in your intentions and you're honest to your passion, and you have the will and the determination to succeed, you'll figure out a way. Otherwise, you're you're going to in any ways, if you feel you're going to learn so much that you're gonna be successful afterwards.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Yeah. Is is that something that drove you? You spoke about, you know, building your own consulting company and and having a few customers there. Is that the mentality that drove you to creating that consulting company? And you mentioned there's a lot of challenges competing with the big players Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>In the market. I'd love to learn a little bit more about those challenges and and how you've overcome those as\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: well. I mean, it's I'm I'm still in in in those challenges because this this the technology space is so big, so wide, and it's growing so much that that's enough for, you know, there's enough for everyone. So that's again why, you know, running my own consulting company gives me an opportunity to choose the projects that I want to work on, work with different people, go to different places and pick up riskier projects and really, win them over and succeed at them. So with bigger companies, because they have so many options, they have the luxury to cherry pick what they wanna pick up and what they don't want to. But then there are some pearls that they often leave out because they think they're too risky.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that's that's the opportunity that you need to jump on and pick up with both your hands. And, if you do that sooner or later, you'll definitely find success. And I like, and then, and that's how I like this, feeling of really being, you know, independent and being able to work, look at, you know, the whole globe, you know, the whole world as, as the playground and open up my window to all different kind of opportunities and just work on on different things and have that same mentality of taking on risks, pursuing your passion, and doing what what really, what really drives you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Yeah. That's that's awesome. And to I mean, you started as a a child growing up in India, and then you've made your way to Canada and even Texas. You know? Growing up, could you have imagined yourself where you are today?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And was there any sort of inspiration to go to Canada or inspiration to go to to somewhere like Dallas? Any anybody growing up as a kid that you might have looked up to or or seen as a as a an excitement to to make that type of worldly journey. You know? Because I've grown up in the US my whole life, and I do have goals to travel worldwide, but it's more so travel. But your exciting development journey is taking you to live in all these places.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So taking back a look at your childhood growing up and even into 10th grade when you started to get into it, was there any draw to make your way to either Canada or US and kind of explore this worldly journey along with that development engineering journey?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: So so I'll tell you this that, the lure of moving to the west or travel was never there. I I was pretty westernized in my thoughts and in my, the way I grew up when I was when I was a kid. All my friends, my engineering friends, have ended up in the US and they're really in big positions. But there comes a point that as you get better and better and better and better at your, at your profession, you're always going to be steered in a in a place where the best talents meet, where you can rub your, you know, where you can rub your shoulders and get better. For example, if you really happen to be a great football player, you can play all the local leagues, but as your skill goes, gets better and better and better, you're automatically going to land up in NFL.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's, that's how I see it. That's how I saw it. There came a point where, we need to the stage and really, rubbing shoulders are the best and working for some really large and big companies. Mobile was the way to go. And really there were a set of events that unfolded that got me here automatically.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like I didn't even have to really try. It was not like sitting back in India and said, you know what? I'm gonna move to the US or I'm gonna move to Canada. It's just the opportunities, the way they present that themselves. And me being not risk weary and taking everything heads on has landed me here.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Yeah. That's that's awesome. And, you know, I know we spoke before this just briefly, but you touched on how, you know, this this is an ongoing journey. This is an ongoing process. You're always out there looking for new information and and, you know, keeping up to date with yourself and your education.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'd love to know 2 things. You know, what are you doing in that way to to to do the same?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: You know, if you're at heart, you're an engineer. So, you know, you if you if you're an engineer and if you wanna be successful, you've you've committed yourself to a life of, a lifelong learning. So you, you have to understand that. And also I've always, because of maybe because of the background that I come from, I've always had a lot of respect for education. I I feel that the the all these institutions, still instill a bunch of good values.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And also it's more so because what what it does to you in terms of the other people you meet at such institutions, you meet other people who are also are mostly extremely hardworking, driven. They have they have, big dreams and they really wanna change the world and so on and so forth. When you are with with such a group, it's it's, it's inevitable that you will have they'll have a profound impact on you. So it's basically that part that, you know, that that makes, doing a course at one of these big universities so attractive. Otherwise, you know, we're in an age where you can learn by yourself.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You can look at YouTube videos, you can go to Coursera, but also, I've been very picky at where I wanted to study, and pursue my continue my education. And some of the universities that are really in the top 10 or 20 have outstanding, educator educate educationists and professors who know their subject really, really, really, really well. So it's just being among that group, among that highly educated, curious people that, that has a good strong influence on you. It's always been that way right in when I was scared. I've hung up a bunch of engineers and that's how it got me here.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Again, giving when you put yourself among a certain group like that, it's the it's the other people. It's the it's the professors that have a strong influence on on your thought process.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Was there ever a time, you know you've you've been through an amazing journey and and really impressed by it, honestly. Was there ever a time either early in your career where you felt maybe I'm going down the wrong path, or were you always, you know, I'm taking on this challenge, and I wanna see this challenge through completion? Or maybe a time later in your career where you just got so, so frustrated with, the status quo, which it sounds like you probably didn't go down that journey of always doing the status quo. But was there ever a time where you just got so frustrated at something or so unsure about the path that you maybe second guessed? Or have you always been the type of person who says, I'm gonna go on this path.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm gonna go to Purdue and finish this degree at Purdue. I'm gonna go to this company and complete this project. Have you always been that type of person?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Yeah. And just to add just along those lines, like, how do you know when to quit? You know, if you're so determined to take something through to the end, you know, are is there a time to quit? Is it appropriate to quit at certain times, and and how how do you know when you're on that path?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: So I it's obviously in any careers, you know, there are ups and downs. I saw that the 2,000.com bust, then I saw the white bust. There are depressions. I think everybody who's a professional has, you know, goes through their doubts, their career and even at workplace, you know, sometimes there is bureaucracy and there are other things that really are a definite, are a letdown. Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, there are those feelings that lurk in that says, you know, maybe, you know, I should have taken that at all, maybe I'm in the Olympics, but you as long as you stay true to your passion, true to your course, you have to get your happiness out of that. You have to kinda shun everything else away and see, hey, you took up you went this route because you were passionate about what you were doing. And I think for many people, it's like that. There comes a point when someone's working in a company, there are things that really affect them, mentally and emotionally. But the way they're able to deal with it is to get invested fully in the work that they're doing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right. But if you're not, the problem comes, then you made the decision to be here because of money and not because of passion. If it was because of money, then you're gonna say, hey, the money isn't great, and I'm going through this emotional and, you know, mental torture, it's not worth it. So that's why I keep saying the only way to sustain yourself for any endeavor is to be passionate about it. Be passionate about it and enjoy enjoy your craft, enjoy getting better at it, and, that's what, that's what will keep you going.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I've I've never been a quitter. I've always once I take, because once you once you quit, quitting becomes a habit. And then succeeding unfortunately, succeeding also becomes a habit. So you decide what you want. And it's like you you have one it's it's going back to your sports background.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? If you have one bad performance in the season, it kinda leaves an impact on you. It kinda rubs on you. So always end something on a good note, always end something on a positive note, on a positive performance, and keep repeating yourself. And it's okay to fail.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then there are multiple theories that are saying that you must fail fast or and so on. But as long as you learn from it, you're learning from your mistake, you're eventually gonna succeed.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Wow. Yeah. This this drives me back to as Pedro said, we have spoken before. And this type of line of thinking of grit and drive and determination and not being afraid to fail, it does remind me and I I feel like I would be remiss to not bring it up. When we spoke before, you mentioned that you were a huge Chuck Norris fan.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And when I think of Chuck Norris, I think of drive and grit and determination and never being afraid to to fail. Do you think that either Chuck Norris has influenced your personal life and or vice versa? You've you've were drawn to him because that's how you were personally. And can you kind of dive a little bit in? I I do think it's kind of fascinating how you're a fan of Chuck Norris.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'd like to get into that just a little bit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: So as I grew up, you know, I, you know, I grew up as a relatively obese kid, but I I loved action. I loved martial arts a lot. So I took up, I took up martial arts when I was 12. I enrolled in the class of taekwondo, then I went on to represent my state, my country in the sport. Back then, you know, when I when I was in my teens, we started getting, foreign channels and foreign TV content on our on our TVs.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that's when I I, I followed a series called, Walker, the Texas Ranger. Right. And even before that, I'd seen a couple of movies of Chuck Norris called the force of 1 and things like that. What really drew me, of course, you know, there've been many martial artists and they were all extremely skilled, but because of the code that Chuck Morris followed in the series Walker, the Texas Ranger, you know, the fact that he was so righteous, he was always honorable and and plus he had a bunch of flashy kicks. I was absolutely, drawn to that person's personality and the role he played.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And also his, you know, his sweet southern demeanor is extremely reflective. The kind of, the gentlemanly manners down from the south. And I and I later on, I dug out that he's really from Oklahoma. He's from down south. Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>He's from Oklahoma, then he moved to Texas. So for many years, you know, I just wanted to be like this guy. I wanted to be righteous. I wanted to be brave, and I wanted to be honorable, and so on and so forth. But I never thought that, I'd land up in Texas.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>As I always, you know, said that for me for most of the people, this is Texas. For me, this is Chuck Morris Lane, and that I felt good validation in the world. I have passed, I think, this ranch. It's called, the lone wolf ranch, and it's really inspired from the from what we call, lone wolf McQuade, you know, where he, plays this role and he's his name is McQuade and then he's called Lone Wolf, and he drives drives around an old, self broken, Toyota truck. So so when I arrived here, I got myself a truck.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I still practice martial arts, and I still I still look up to Chuck Norris because I think he's a class act. Even in the world of martial artists, arts, martial arts, he's still extremely respected. I keep wondering why they, you know, why they haven't, gotten him to be a president of this country. I think he's a\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Well, if\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: he sees\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: us, who knows? Celebrities are getting into it these days. So Yes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Yeah. And it's it's you. Now you're now you're the Texas Ranger, so it's it's awesome that there's still one roaming around there, active. Right? But I I wanted to bring thing something back to failure, which is, something that obviously Chuck Norris had no part in.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>He didn't obviously, Chuck Norris never failed. But but you spoke about failure being acceptable and and really being passionate about the work that you put in and always trying to learn something. That way failure is always an opportunity. Right? And and to always be passionate about something is is really motivating, and that's something that that I always try to relate to and and find success in.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, they're we're gonna have failures throughout our career, and we have to at least benefit from that in some way. You know, tying failure back to bureaucracy, you mentioned, Has there ever been a project throughout your career, something that you've been very passionate about and working, that maybe bureaucracy killed that project? Or, you you know, something got in the way and and it that project wasn't able to come to fruition. And one of the things that I've been thinking about lately is how this is, you know, the pace of AI and technology in that space and how everybody's working on these crazy projects or even cryptocurrencies. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>These are projects that, at the end of the day, bureaucracy and or or governments or the law could eventually prevent or stifle innovation in these categories. And I I'd love to know if, you know, if you experience that through your career and working with these companies and what you might think of of people who are passionate and working on these projects, fearing that the same could happen to them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: Yeah. I think a lot of the times you could find yourself in a project that that is set up to fail even before you enter it. That's possible. But I would again say that in order to, if you know, get into cryptocurrency, get into blockchain or get into AI because that that interests you. Not because there's a lot of money or whatsoever, but let let your passion and your interest be the reason for you to get into it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Again, bureaucracy and regulation and many other things might be might be a factor in your project, but, it's important to shun all of those away and just be focused at your craft. Just be focused at the task that you have at your hand and make sure you're doing everything in your, power to be to be successful at it. Right. There's only, again, there's only so much you can always control, be focused on what you can change and what, what is in your control and what's not you will when you don't have any control over it, there's no point in worrying about it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: That's true. And and and that's how I've kind of reacted to the cryptocurrency. You know, I've been involved in it for a little while. It it wasn't really to make money. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm just passionate about the space and the category, and I think, blockchain and these technologies could do good for the world. So, you know, I invest with my time and and my dollars. Unfortunately, some of those dollars have disappeared through the process. But, you know, it's like I'm I'll be okay if if all that money goes to 0. It's really about me trying to push forward the future that that I want to see, you know, for me and and future generations.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, it's definitely good to to hear you along the same lines.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: Yeah. I'll also add that, you know, you when you're in the technology space, you'll see a lot of that. You'll see a lot of hype. You'll always you'll always be part of you'll always see a lot of buzz, but then you'll have to look at past patterns, look at the history to see how long a particular fad will last. And that's that's the flip side of being in technology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There is something that will meet its promise and there's there's there's always gonna be a ton of things that won't. And you you have to continuously learn and be wary of that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Are there any of these future technologies or, I guess, we're now current technologies that you personally have a passion for? You know, we've talked about your your passion and and how it's guided you to where you are now. Are you passionate about AR or VR or crypto or something different? You know, what is your current passion leading you to to to work on these days?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: I'm, so so I'm currently passionate about 2 things, and this has been, and and this has been my, area of study currently. 1 is, semiconductors, manufacturing of chips, how we're pushing the boundaries, out there. How is Moore's law changing and how we're, what are the innovations that are happening that are happening in that space? Purdue is one of the first there's all also recently been the CHIPS Act, in the US that's really pushing forward the manufacture of semiconductors and and chips within the country so that, you know, companies here are self reliant and we can figure out a way to make, manufacture chips here locally. So that's definitely one area.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And Purdue is one of the first, universities to come out with a course that centers around, semiconductors and microelectronics. So I'm doing that as my second specialization. The other one is, of course, artificial intelligence. Right? It's it's I think there came a point where, you know, it became obvious that, data data is the new you know, all companies start saying they still say data is the new currency.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? Whoever has more and better control over their data can make faster decisions. And I think AI is, the next step in that direction. To be not acclimated with AI in some way, you know, let alone, you know, master it or know it really well at the core, is just, just being, want to be being ignorant or staying ignorant. So AI, artificial intelligence, because I've already done a lot of work on data, that's a big area of my study.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And the other thing is, since I started my, career as an embedded engineer, the area of semiconductors and, chip manufacturing. Those are my 2 areas where I'm really focused on in terms of learning.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: If you could, if you could take a look back at your 10th grade self or current developers who are out there in the world, I think this would be a great place to kind of wrap up with your experience of where you've been, where you're headed. If you could give yourself and other developers out there maybe a quick, you know, a commencement ceremony pitch, you know, or or a, hey, motivational speech, what would you tell your 10th grade self or someone who's just getting started in development about chasing their passions? You know, how would you wrap up how they could kind of mold their growth along what you've done yourself?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: So just to summarize, I'd say, you know, keep the fire up in yourself. Never forget the reason why you were why you chose this field. Always do things that can, you know, bring a change in people's lives and, try to do things differently. Try all always push for, doing things that are innovative. Always try to do things, in a manner that's never been done before, And always, you know, be, be a medium be a medium of change.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Don't be, you know, don't don't be repetitive. Right? You're in a space where there's so much change and so much innovation happening. So, you know, always keep things doing differently and be true to yourself. And, you're gonna that's the only way you're gonna be in this field for a very long time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Yeah. I think authentic is a good word. I think over the conversations we've had with you, I think you're you're definitely very authentic. And I think I think that's important these days is being authentic to yourself, being authentic with other people. And like you said, you know, chase your passion.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Money will come alongside. You know? So if you chase money, you might not be happy, but if you chase happiness, you probably will find money along the way. So I think that's I think it's a really great wrap up. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And and and I think that's a lesson to be learned, and there were some risks that you took. There were some safe options you coulda had, but you chased your passion in the end, and that really led you to where you are and and that type of wealth. And being able to pass that type of wealth, that type of wisdom and information on to other people It's how we as humanity kind of continue to grow, and that's kind of what Pedro mentioned is that's what he feels cryptocurrency is is helping humanity along this this crazy journey. We're on this crazy journey. What AI is already doing, is very exciting.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And people also forget that for the time being, AI is run by people, and helping other people kind of craft their journeys is pretty exciting.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: And, always have the childlike curiosity. Right? Never let that die. But that's very key that's a unique key to learn.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Awesome, Santosh. It's been great. I think, is there any way that you know, are do you ever mentor people? Are people able to reach out to you, or is there anything that you wanna promote while you're here on at the end of this this, session? You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Is there anything that you're working on that you're excited about? Are you willing to teach other people if they reach out\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Santosh Ahuja: to you? I've always helped out people who wanted to reach out to me. There are people who often reach out to me saying that, hey. You know, I have these these options. What do I do?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>In fact, at Purdue, a lot of people, Purdue, a lot of people that I study with are half my age. So they seek out advices and things like that. And, I tell them sometimes you have to do things to survive, but eventually you want to know what, what, what is, what is it that interests you and just stick to your passion, be true to yourself yourself, and successful definitely follow. That that's what I that's what I have to say. So, yeah, even if my work at Texas yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think somebody from Texas A&M University reached out and they said, okay. You know, we would want somebody to look at our post grads and things like that. I'm extremely passionate about education. So all also, if there are ways that you can contribute to the, to the society, through your learnings and through your skill, I think we should do that as well. That's that's that's for the betterment of, you know, humanity and mankind.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's that's the way way to go.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Awesome. Sweet. Well, we will wrap it up there. Thanks so much, Santosh, for joining us today. And, yeah, we really appreciate it.\u003C/p>","The code that Chuck Norris followed in the series Walker the Texas Ranger, you know, he the fact that he was so righteous, he was always honorable, and, and plus he had a bunch of flashy kicks. I was absolutely, drawn, to that person's personality and the role he played. Thank you, Santosh, for joining us today for an interview with us. We really wanted to to get to know you, you know, get get to know a little bit more about your background, maybe advice you have for other developers, and really use this podcast to, as a mindshare, for the community and and to learn a bit more about your background as well and and share that with the world. Right? You know, as you're a lead engineer at Optum, we're just really excited to to hear about your journey and, how you got here, what you're doing, currently, and and where you look to go in the future. So, if you'd like to introduce yourself and maybe a a brief on your background, we can get right into into, talking about it. Yeah. So hello. My name is, Santosh Abuja, and I currently work as a lead engineer at Optum, and I've been there for the last 2 years now. I also run my own consulting firm. It's called App Resilience, and, I have a couple of customers, so that's the direction I'm leading into. My background is predominantly I come from a, you know, business family. I have I completed my bachelor's in, in business and accounting. I did a bunch of courses in computers, right when I was in my 10th grade, but I soon landed a job as an engineer. And then from, there on, there's there's been no looking back, and, I'm here right now in in this country, in this beautiful country, called the United States, where people come to pursue their dreams, where people come to work with the best. And I've also had the fortune of, getting my master's done, at Purdue. So that's a big background. Yeah. I'd love to, I myself, you know, I have a a developer background a little bit, and I'm always curious to hear how people got into engineering and development. Sometimes people played with specific toys when they were younger. Sometimes they watched specific TV shows or movies that got them interested. So I'm I'm really curious to kind of hear that beginning, entry into engineering and development. What was it that got you interested? Was anyone a mentor of yourself, more could we would you be able to dive a little bit more into the beginning stages of your exploration into engineering? So it started when I was, you know, you could say young, you know, when you're young, when you're in your teens, you you're really trying to find out you're really trying to find out what you wanna do and carve a path for yourself, but you also have a little bit of that herd mentality. Right? You have a bunch of guys who start playing football and you start playing football with them. They start playing tennis. You start playing tennis with them. So I had a bunch of friends. They were from, you know, middle class families and they had, their path carved out for them. They had their parents who instilled in them a strong sense of, purpose in their life, education, and get really high paying jobs. I came from a business family and that was not the path for me. I already had a really cushioned, comfortable, and a clear path of taking on my family business. But, you know, because I had a bunch of friends who had a different path and, I just hung out with them a lot more. And, on one summer and every summer, they would always preoccupy themselves with some sort of a course in order to gather skills that maybe, you know, English speaking course or typewriting course and stuff like that. So that came a summer, I guess, in my 10th grade around when I was 13 or 14. A bunch of my friends enrolled in a computer class. And, really, it's because of them I owe my career to them because it's because of them I I joined that computer class and I really did well. Never saw computer science as a discipline of engineering, until I saw the amount of math that played an important role, in that, you know, in that in that in that profession. So that's how it started. And then what happened because I did a bunch of courses in computer science. I took up I took up a I took up a degree in business because, you know, my parents want me to, and, you know, we come from a background where we do a lot of things just to please our parents and our family and kinda did that, but also it had a minor in computer science. And I really did well, in that course. So after that, I, you know, I was still going back and, you know, was with my family, took on the family family business, run it for a while. But at the same time, my passion for computer science and programming grew. I continued to take a bunch of courses just because I was really, really interested in it, just because I had fun solving problems. And it so happened that, I just hung up with a bunch of friends when they were going for an interview, and I just happened to get selected. And, I really took on the job, and I haven't, in this I haven't looked back ever since. I was still within the same city, so my parents were okay with me going in a different direction for a while, hoping that I would find the going really tough, and I would just come back to the to the comfy life that I that I had. So that's how I got into engineering. That's awesome. That that your path sounds like, you know, you really hung out with a good group of friends, very motivated high schoolers. Mhmm. Very different from from my upbringing of growing up with a bunch of rascals just getting into shenanigans. Right? You sound like a very motivated, group of folks. Was that I know you've bounced around to a few different countries, and now you're here in the US. Was that back in India? Was that in Canada? Tell us a little bit about your your journey in in my career. Back in India. So I did I also had a bunch of friends who who were rascals and I got into all all different kind of shenanigans, but I knew that that kind of thing wouldn't get me too far. So I kind of played a safe role. I had my eggs in different baskets, if you will. And, and really, and also, you know, because of the sports background, I always had the sense of doing well, have a bunch of friends who I can compete with mentally, physically, and all that all that stuff. So I started back in a small town in India called Kaimatar, and, the short form is Kwendi. It's really known. It's a it's a big hub for educational, for education, a lot of universities out there. And I started with a company, that made software for British Telecom. It was that was that was the only software company in the city and was really, really, really, really hard to get into, that company. But I started because of my curiosity, I started learning a bunch of courses really fast, and, I started teaching in different universities. That's what I did when I didn't get jobs and I eventually got a gig with them. And, that's how it started. So before it was not until a few years later that I really got a chance to go to Canada to work for some web companies, because I started with a company, you know, who were developing software for British Telecom. I stayed with the same domain, did a lot of embedded programming, and then soon got attracted to a couple of companies who started doing a lot of VoIP, and voice or IP. And then, that landed me to Canada because Canada had Canada had a lot of up and coming, big, white companies. And some of the companies were really, paving the way for innovation and how, video and audio was being streamed over a call and how all these calls that we traditionally do with COPPA lines were really becoming digital. Right? So I spent quite some time in Canada working there, working for somebody, and that was really an eye opener. And, because there again, I saw a really, I saw a lot of top engineers. I learned a lot of them, learned learned a lot from them, and that really proved me as a person, as an engineer. I then came back because I was not a permanent position, in Canada. I I was really doing work for an Indian company, but I was engaging with a bunch of innovators in Canada and working in developing some products. And then I came back and, I I was at a point where I was switching jobs again. And then I worked for a company, that was Venus out of Richardson. And when Richardson was called, Telecom called it out. We do it. Right? A lot of telecom companies in Richardson, like, NCI and there's AT and T over here that is also, you know, Texas Instruments, both hardware in terms of software and things like that. So, I started working for this company, and then, this company was had the business of a startup, the whole, you know, the whole it was really it was really a technical company at the core. Even the founders were past architects of some really successful startups and things like that. So when I joined this company, they were an exclusive shop of a big up and coming start up. And this start up had and this startup was based out of Richardson and the founders of this startup had senior entrepreneurs. They had, they had a history of building successful products and with multimillion dollar exits, like 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars. So I got a chance to work pretty early on with such a company. I was core engineer, but then they also had a bunch of engineers here, and I really got a chance to work with some of the really good engineers from companies like Nortel, Cisco, you know, that and that really, again, grew me as a person. It pushed me. I I developed my skills a lot. Pretty much been with the same enough that I was pretty much the same company. As over the years, this company transformed itself into a full fledged consulting company making software for the web, the mobile, we literally saw an age where, mobile devices, change from mono those monoprint screens to really Apple like large screens with large real estate, and you would really touch on that screen and see things happen. Right? So you got into that smart, smartphone age and, where these our phones really started taking place our traditional desktops. Traditionally, we had desktop. We've installed different apps on them, played different games on them. Now we're getting into an age where we could do all these things on smartphones. And that's when, this company started making apps, saw the opportunity, started making apps for, a lot of, you know, different kind of smartphones. Yeah. It's it sounds to me like there's a there's a common thread that kind of weaves its way throughout your life and your career. I'd like to kinda take that road for a second. You talked about when you were younger, and you had this this opportunity to kind of follow the footsteps of your family, which to me, honestly, sounds like a safe route. And I feel like I feel like for those of us who are in technology, we traditionally don't take the safe route. I think part of being in technology and engineering and development is kind of finding a way to solve a a problem in a different way. You come across an issue and there's there might be a safe route where you can do something, but why not take a different route, especially if that different route leads you in fun and unexpected directions. So you had this opportunity when you were younger to follow in a safe path, but you kind of chose the you you went along with your friends. You you succumb to peer pressure, and you went into the engineering route. And it kinda sounds like you also went that route as you started to get into your career as well. You you made your way to a small start up where there was a lot more excitement, a lot more risk. There was a lot more what ifs and unknowns. But in the end, it really kind of was the best choice for you, and that kind of stemmed back to your childhood. So in your opinion and, you know, there's there's people out there watching who have this decision all the time. Do they go the safe route? Do they go the more adventurous route? That's that might be more risky. Do you find that being an engineer in in technology, that is the the better route to go, to be a little bit more daring, to take more risks, you know, not only professionally, but also personally? Is that something that you feel has led you leaps and bounds to where you are now and you'd be in a completely different place if you had gone the safe route? Yeah. You know, the answer I think the right answer to that is partly I've I've never been, you know, I've always, you know, I have, I've always been encouraged to take risks, but also the other part is I've always followed my passion and my intuition. So I always have a suggestion saying that never chase money, chase your passion. If you have an intrinsic feeling, that pushes you towards a certain direction, just as long as your intentions are honest, you're honorable in your, in your in your intentions and in your goal, you're you're gonna be fine. So that's what led me to take the decisions that I, that I took. I always also, there was always a saying that when you join with us, when you join a smaller company, you get a lot more responsibilities. There's a lot of lot more opportunities to take more responsibilities and you kind of mature faster. The other part is also with some of the smaller consulting companies, they're they can't compete with larger companies. They're really jumping on every kind of opportunities that they get. So even if they're, they're risky opportunities and, I've always been someone who's I haven't I've never thought too much. When I look at an endeavor, I really look at what it offers me in terms of growth. I look at it on the challenges, on the on the challenges that it poses and the opportunities to learn. I don't get in the political side of what if I fail or if I fail, how would I be perceived? What do I look at? Would I make a fool of myself? That's not something that I really thought. It's okay to fail, but it's important in my view to always take up opportunities and, risks ahead as long as you are honest in your intentions and you're honest to your passion, and you have the will and the determination to succeed, you'll figure out a way. Otherwise, you're you're going to in any ways, if you feel you're going to learn so much that you're gonna be successful afterwards. Yeah. Is is that something that drove you? You spoke about, you know, building your own consulting company and and having a few customers there. Is that the mentality that drove you to creating that consulting company? And you mentioned there's a lot of challenges competing with the big players Yeah. In the market. I'd love to learn a little bit more about those challenges and and how you've overcome those as well. I mean, it's I'm I'm still in in in those challenges because this this the technology space is so big, so wide, and it's growing so much that that's enough for, you know, there's enough for everyone. So that's again why, you know, running my own consulting company gives me an opportunity to choose the projects that I want to work on, work with different people, go to different places and pick up riskier projects and really, win them over and succeed at them. So with bigger companies, because they have so many options, they have the luxury to cherry pick what they wanna pick up and what they don't want to. But then there are some pearls that they often leave out because they think they're too risky. And that's that's the opportunity that you need to jump on and pick up with both your hands. And, if you do that sooner or later, you'll definitely find success. And I like, and then, and that's how I like this, feeling of really being, you know, independent and being able to work, look at, you know, the whole globe, you know, the whole world as, as the playground and open up my window to all different kind of opportunities and just work on on different things and have that same mentality of taking on risks, pursuing your passion, and doing what what really, what really drives you. Yeah. That's that's awesome. And to I mean, you started as a a child growing up in India, and then you've made your way to Canada and even Texas. You know? Growing up, could you have imagined yourself where you are today? And was there any sort of inspiration to go to Canada or inspiration to go to to somewhere like Dallas? Any anybody growing up as a kid that you might have looked up to or or seen as a as a an excitement to to make that type of worldly journey. You know? Because I've grown up in the US my whole life, and I do have goals to travel worldwide, but it's more so travel. But your exciting development journey is taking you to live in all these places. So taking back a look at your childhood growing up and even into 10th grade when you started to get into it, was there any draw to make your way to either Canada or US and kind of explore this worldly journey along with that development engineering journey? So so I'll tell you this that, the lure of moving to the west or travel was never there. I I was pretty westernized in my thoughts and in my, the way I grew up when I was when I was a kid. All my friends, my engineering friends, have ended up in the US and they're really in big positions. But there comes a point that as you get better and better and better and better at your, at your profession, you're always going to be steered in a in a place where the best talents meet, where you can rub your, you know, where you can rub your shoulders and get better. For example, if you really happen to be a great football player, you can play all the local leagues, but as your skill goes, gets better and better and better, you're automatically going to land up in NFL. That's, that's how I see it. That's how I saw it. There came a point where, we need to the stage and really, rubbing shoulders are the best and working for some really large and big companies. Mobile was the way to go. And really there were a set of events that unfolded that got me here automatically. Like I didn't even have to really try. It was not like sitting back in India and said, you know what? I'm gonna move to the US or I'm gonna move to Canada. It's just the opportunities, the way they present that themselves. And me being not risk weary and taking everything heads on has landed me here. Yeah. That's that's awesome. And, you know, I know we spoke before this just briefly, but you touched on how, you know, this this is an ongoing journey. This is an ongoing process. You're always out there looking for new information and and, you know, keeping up to date with yourself and your education. I'd love to know 2 things. You know, what are you doing in that way to to to do the same? You know, if you're at heart, you're an engineer. So, you know, you if you if you're an engineer and if you wanna be successful, you've you've committed yourself to a life of, a lifelong learning. So you, you have to understand that. And also I've always, because of maybe because of the background that I come from, I've always had a lot of respect for education. I I feel that the the all these institutions, still instill a bunch of good values. And also it's more so because what what it does to you in terms of the other people you meet at such institutions, you meet other people who are also are mostly extremely hardworking, driven. They have they have, big dreams and they really wanna change the world and so on and so forth. When you are with with such a group, it's it's, it's inevitable that you will have they'll have a profound impact on you. So it's basically that part that, you know, that that makes, doing a course at one of these big universities so attractive. Otherwise, you know, we're in an age where you can learn by yourself. You can look at YouTube videos, you can go to Coursera, but also, I've been very picky at where I wanted to study, and pursue my continue my education. And some of the universities that are really in the top 10 or 20 have outstanding, educator educate educationists and professors who know their subject really, really, really, really well. So it's just being among that group, among that highly educated, curious people that, that has a good strong influence on you. It's always been that way right in when I was scared. I've hung up a bunch of engineers and that's how it got me here. Again, giving when you put yourself among a certain group like that, it's the it's the other people. It's the it's the professors that have a strong influence on on your thought process. Was there ever a time, you know you've you've been through an amazing journey and and really impressed by it, honestly. Was there ever a time either early in your career where you felt maybe I'm going down the wrong path, or were you always, you know, I'm taking on this challenge, and I wanna see this challenge through completion? Or maybe a time later in your career where you just got so, so frustrated with, the status quo, which it sounds like you probably didn't go down that journey of always doing the status quo. But was there ever a time where you just got so frustrated at something or so unsure about the path that you maybe second guessed? Or have you always been the type of person who says, I'm gonna go on this path. I'm gonna go to Purdue and finish this degree at Purdue. I'm gonna go to this company and complete this project. Have you always been that type of person? Yeah. And just to add just along those lines, like, how do you know when to quit? You know, if you're so determined to take something through to the end, you know, are is there a time to quit? Is it appropriate to quit at certain times, and and how how do you know when you're on that path? So I it's obviously in any careers, you know, there are ups and downs. I saw that the 2,000.com bust, then I saw the white bust. There are depressions. I think everybody who's a professional has, you know, goes through their doubts, their career and even at workplace, you know, sometimes there is bureaucracy and there are other things that really are a definite, are a letdown. Right. And, there are those feelings that lurk in that says, you know, maybe, you know, I should have taken that at all, maybe I'm in the Olympics, but you as long as you stay true to your passion, true to your course, you have to get your happiness out of that. You have to kinda shun everything else away and see, hey, you took up you went this route because you were passionate about what you were doing. And I think for many people, it's like that. There comes a point when someone's working in a company, there are things that really affect them, mentally and emotionally. But the way they're able to deal with it is to get invested fully in the work that they're doing. Right. But if you're not, the problem comes, then you made the decision to be here because of money and not because of passion. If it was because of money, then you're gonna say, hey, the money isn't great, and I'm going through this emotional and, you know, mental torture, it's not worth it. So that's why I keep saying the only way to sustain yourself for any endeavor is to be passionate about it. Be passionate about it and enjoy enjoy your craft, enjoy getting better at it, and, that's what, that's what will keep you going. And I've I've never been a quitter. I've always once I take, because once you once you quit, quitting becomes a habit. And then succeeding unfortunately, succeeding also becomes a habit. So you decide what you want. And it's like you you have one it's it's going back to your sports background. Right? If you have one bad performance in the season, it kinda leaves an impact on you. It kinda rubs on you. So always end something on a good note, always end something on a positive note, on a positive performance, and keep repeating yourself. And it's okay to fail. And then there are multiple theories that are saying that you must fail fast or and so on. But as long as you learn from it, you're learning from your mistake, you're eventually gonna succeed. Wow. Yeah. This this drives me back to as Pedro said, we have spoken before. And this type of line of thinking of grit and drive and determination and not being afraid to fail, it does remind me and I I feel like I would be remiss to not bring it up. When we spoke before, you mentioned that you were a huge Chuck Norris fan. And when I think of Chuck Norris, I think of drive and grit and determination and never being afraid to to fail. Do you think that either Chuck Norris has influenced your personal life and or vice versa? You've you've were drawn to him because that's how you were personally. And can you kind of dive a little bit in? I I do think it's kind of fascinating how you're a fan of Chuck Norris. I'd like to get into that just a little bit. So as I grew up, you know, I, you know, I grew up as a relatively obese kid, but I I loved action. I loved martial arts a lot. So I took up, I took up martial arts when I was 12. I enrolled in the class of taekwondo, then I went on to represent my state, my country in the sport. Back then, you know, when I when I was in my teens, we started getting, foreign channels and foreign TV content on our on our TVs. And that's when I I, I followed a series called, Walker, the Texas Ranger. Right. And even before that, I'd seen a couple of movies of Chuck Norris called the force of 1 and things like that. What really drew me, of course, you know, there've been many martial artists and they were all extremely skilled, but because of the code that Chuck Morris followed in the series Walker, the Texas Ranger, you know, the fact that he was so righteous, he was always honorable and and plus he had a bunch of flashy kicks. I was absolutely, drawn to that person's personality and the role he played. And also his, you know, his sweet southern demeanor is extremely reflective. The kind of, the gentlemanly manners down from the south. And I and I later on, I dug out that he's really from Oklahoma. He's from down south. Right. He's from Oklahoma, then he moved to Texas. So for many years, you know, I just wanted to be like this guy. I wanted to be righteous. I wanted to be brave, and I wanted to be honorable, and so on and so forth. But I never thought that, I'd land up in Texas. As I always, you know, said that for me for most of the people, this is Texas. For me, this is Chuck Morris Lane, and that I felt good validation in the world. I have passed, I think, this ranch. It's called, the lone wolf ranch, and it's really inspired from the from what we call, lone wolf McQuade, you know, where he, plays this role and he's his name is McQuade and then he's called Lone Wolf, and he drives drives around an old, self broken, Toyota truck. So so when I arrived here, I got myself a truck. I still practice martial arts, and I still I still look up to Chuck Norris because I think he's a class act. Even in the world of martial artists, arts, martial arts, he's still extremely respected. I keep wondering why they, you know, why they haven't, gotten him to be a president of this country. I think he's a Well, if he sees us, who knows? Celebrities are getting into it these days. So Yes. Yeah. And it's it's you. Now you're now you're the Texas Ranger, so it's it's awesome that there's still one roaming around there, active. Right? But I I wanted to bring thing something back to failure, which is, something that obviously Chuck Norris had no part in. He didn't obviously, Chuck Norris never failed. But but you spoke about failure being acceptable and and really being passionate about the work that you put in and always trying to learn something. That way failure is always an opportunity. Right? And and to always be passionate about something is is really motivating, and that's something that that I always try to relate to and and find success in. I mean, they're we're gonna have failures throughout our career, and we have to at least benefit from that in some way. You know, tying failure back to bureaucracy, you mentioned, Has there ever been a project throughout your career, something that you've been very passionate about and working, that maybe bureaucracy killed that project? Or, you you know, something got in the way and and it that project wasn't able to come to fruition. And one of the things that I've been thinking about lately is how this is, you know, the pace of AI and technology in that space and how everybody's working on these crazy projects or even cryptocurrencies. Right? These are projects that, at the end of the day, bureaucracy and or or governments or the law could eventually prevent or stifle innovation in these categories. And I I'd love to know if, you know, if you experience that through your career and working with these companies and what you might think of of people who are passionate and working on these projects, fearing that the same could happen to them. Yeah. I think a lot of the times you could find yourself in a project that that is set up to fail even before you enter it. That's possible. But I would again say that in order to, if you know, get into cryptocurrency, get into blockchain or get into AI because that that interests you. Not because there's a lot of money or whatsoever, but let let your passion and your interest be the reason for you to get into it. Again, bureaucracy and regulation and many other things might be might be a factor in your project, but, it's important to shun all of those away and just be focused at your craft. Just be focused at the task that you have at your hand and make sure you're doing everything in your, power to be to be successful at it. Right. There's only, again, there's only so much you can always control, be focused on what you can change and what, what is in your control and what's not you will when you don't have any control over it, there's no point in worrying about it. That's true. And and and that's how I've kind of reacted to the cryptocurrency. You know, I've been involved in it for a little while. It it wasn't really to make money. Right? I'm just passionate about the space and the category, and I think, blockchain and these technologies could do good for the world. So, you know, I invest with my time and and my dollars. Unfortunately, some of those dollars have disappeared through the process. But, you know, it's like I'm I'll be okay if if all that money goes to 0. It's really about me trying to push forward the future that that I want to see, you know, for me and and future generations. So, it's definitely good to to hear you along the same lines. Yeah. I'll also add that, you know, you when you're in the technology space, you'll see a lot of that. You'll see a lot of hype. You'll always you'll always be part of you'll always see a lot of buzz, but then you'll have to look at past patterns, look at the history to see how long a particular fad will last. And that's that's the flip side of being in technology. There is something that will meet its promise and there's there's there's always gonna be a ton of things that won't. And you you have to continuously learn and be wary of that. Are there any of these future technologies or, I guess, we're now current technologies that you personally have a passion for? You know, we've talked about your your passion and and how it's guided you to where you are now. Are you passionate about AR or VR or crypto or something different? You know, what is your current passion leading you to to to work on these days? I'm, so so I'm currently passionate about 2 things, and this has been, and and this has been my, area of study currently. 1 is, semiconductors, manufacturing of chips, how we're pushing the boundaries, out there. How is Moore's law changing and how we're, what are the innovations that are happening that are happening in that space? Purdue is one of the first there's all also recently been the CHIPS Act, in the US that's really pushing forward the manufacture of semiconductors and and chips within the country so that, you know, companies here are self reliant and we can figure out a way to make, manufacture chips here locally. So that's definitely one area. And Purdue is one of the first, universities to come out with a course that centers around, semiconductors and microelectronics. So I'm doing that as my second specialization. The other one is, of course, artificial intelligence. Right? It's it's I think there came a point where, you know, it became obvious that, data data is the new you know, all companies start saying they still say data is the new currency. Right? Whoever has more and better control over their data can make faster decisions. And I think AI is, the next step in that direction. To be not acclimated with AI in some way, you know, let alone, you know, master it or know it really well at the core, is just, just being, want to be being ignorant or staying ignorant. So AI, artificial intelligence, because I've already done a lot of work on data, that's a big area of my study. And the other thing is, since I started my, career as an embedded engineer, the area of semiconductors and, chip manufacturing. Those are my 2 areas where I'm really focused on in terms of learning. If you could, if you could take a look back at your 10th grade self or current developers who are out there in the world, I think this would be a great place to kind of wrap up with your experience of where you've been, where you're headed. If you could give yourself and other developers out there maybe a quick, you know, a commencement ceremony pitch, you know, or or a, hey, motivational speech, what would you tell your 10th grade self or someone who's just getting started in development about chasing their passions? You know, how would you wrap up how they could kind of mold their growth along what you've done yourself? So just to summarize, I'd say, you know, keep the fire up in yourself. Never forget the reason why you were why you chose this field. Always do things that can, you know, bring a change in people's lives and, try to do things differently. Try all always push for, doing things that are innovative. Always try to do things, in a manner that's never been done before, And always, you know, be, be a medium be a medium of change. Don't be, you know, don't don't be repetitive. Right? You're in a space where there's so much change and so much innovation happening. So, you know, always keep things doing differently and be true to yourself. And, you're gonna that's the only way you're gonna be in this field for a very long time. Yeah. I think authentic is a good word. I think over the conversations we've had with you, I think you're you're definitely very authentic. And I think I think that's important these days is being authentic to yourself, being authentic with other people. And like you said, you know, chase your passion. Money will come alongside. You know? So if you chase money, you might not be happy, but if you chase happiness, you probably will find money along the way. So I think that's I think it's a really great wrap up. You know? And and and I think that's a lesson to be learned, and there were some risks that you took. There were some safe options you coulda had, but you chased your passion in the end, and that really led you to where you are and and that type of wealth. And being able to pass that type of wealth, that type of wisdom and information on to other people It's how we as humanity kind of continue to grow, and that's kind of what Pedro mentioned is that's what he feels cryptocurrency is is helping humanity along this this crazy journey. We're on this crazy journey. What AI is already doing, is very exciting. And people also forget that for the time being, AI is run by people, and helping other people kind of craft their journeys is pretty exciting. And, always have the childlike curiosity. Right? Never let that die. But that's very key that's a unique key to learn. Awesome, Santosh. It's been great. I think, is there any way that you know, are do you ever mentor people? Are people able to reach out to you, or is there anything that you wanna promote while you're here on at the end of this this, session? You know? Is there anything that you're working on that you're excited about? Are you willing to teach other people if they reach out to you? I've always helped out people who wanted to reach out to me. There are people who often reach out to me saying that, hey. You know, I have these these options. What do I do? In fact, at Purdue, a lot of people, Purdue, a lot of people that I study with are half my age. So they seek out advices and things like that. And, I tell them sometimes you have to do things to survive, but eventually you want to know what, what, what is, what is it that interests you and just stick to your passion, be true to yourself yourself, and successful definitely follow. That that's what I that's what I have to say. So, yeah, even if my work at Texas yeah. I think somebody from Texas A&M University reached out and they said, okay. You know, we would want somebody to look at our post grads and things like that. I'm extremely passionate about education. So all also, if there are ways that you can contribute to the, to the society, through your learnings and through your skill, I think we should do that as well. That's that's that's for the betterment of, you know, humanity and mankind. That's that's the way way to go. Awesome. Sweet. Well, we will wrap it up there. Thanks so much, Santosh, for joining us today. And, yeah, we really appreciate it.",[175,176,177],"f9844f3e-c7b7-4827-ae0b-31cd0a0d8580","64e37381-ebc3-45f8-b55a-3d882b88143e","ec80b198-f644-4258-a1f2-53196bb43431",[],{"id":144,"number":145,"show":122,"year":146,"episodes":180},[148,149,150,151,152],{"id":149,"slug":182,"vimeo_id":183,"description":184,"tile":185,"length":186,"resources":8,"people":187,"episode_number":135,"published":193,"title":194,"video_transcript_html":195,"video_transcript_text":196,"content":8,"seo":8,"status":130,"episode_people":197,"recommendations":201,"season":202},"gavin-doughtie","896604270","Delve into Gavin's unique journey from his early years in the entertainment industry to his evolution as a developer, and gain insights into the intersection of technology and corporate dynamics.","07047069-4bdf-46aa-83f2-38ab02c6cf2e",40,[188,189,190],{"name":162,"url":163},{"name":165,"url":166},{"name":191,"url":192},"Gavin Doughtie","https://www.linkedin.com/in/doughtie/","2024-01-11","Gavin Doughtie, Senior Developer at Aon","\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: There was no one, like, technology There were a lot of little things that would guide me towards creative aspects or technology things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Welcome, Gavin. Thanks for joining, John and I on the podcast today. You know, obviously, as as we know, you know, you're a senior dev at Aon, and we wanted to get some background on on your career, the lessons that you've learned, going from development to senior development and some management and leadership in there, and really touch on your background to see if it's if it's useful for the folks who are listening in. Definitely gonna be useful for John and I. But we'd love to learn a little bit more about your background quickly if you'd like to summarize it in your own words.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, yeah, we can kick things off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: I was born yeah. So I, I grew up in Houston, Texas. My father was a professor at Rice University, and, unlike you might expect, he taught Elizabethan folk songs and ballads and English literature. But it was a very technical college, so I spent a lot of my, like, childhood time hanging out on a college campus, and a lot of my my peers were other faculty brats. And so there was a certain amount of cultural predestination towards reading things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I did a lot of that growing up, read a lot of science fiction. Because of science fiction, I like science fiction movies. Because of science fiction movies, I like Star Trek. Because Star Trek, I went to science fiction conventions. Because of that, I saw some Ray Harryhausen movies with stop motion monsters.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I got all excited about special effects and making movies. After that, I said, well, I'm gonna go to film school, and I'm gonna go to I'm gonna go to USC Film School, which was the one that, you know, George Lucas went to and now has funded heavily. And I applied. I applied you know, my backup schools were UCLA and NYU. So I got into, the film school at NYU, and I got into, UCLA as not just a regular undeclared undergraduate.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And USC Film School rejected me. And so I'm I'm, like, I am not staying in Houston, Texas a minute longer. I'm gonna go to UCLA. So I went there and started doing classes and meeting people and figuring out how to live in Los Angeles, and I kept applying to film school. And the second time I applied though, they also rejected me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I, you know, I, like, learned some stuff from that, and, and then worked on my application and applied. And then the third time I applied, they also rejected me, but the 4th the 4th time worked.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Goodness.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: So, so I started, at USC's film school as a junior in the early eighties, and I went there for a couple of years. And I worked on people's student films. But the, the thing that I think a lot of people miss out is you just do a lot of production, when you start out. You know? So you don't get too precious about it, and you try a lot of different things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And you come in and show it to your peers, and they critique it. And you try to, like, clamp down on your own defensiveness long enough to take a lesson away from it and try to improve the work you do the next time, and we were all helping each other out. And then when you're working on someone else's film, instead of doing it all yourself and being totally in control, you have to learn how to give up control and and get something from someone else to allow them to contribute and allow them to learn how to contribute if their skills in one area or another are not as strong as yours. And that idea that it's not a you're not a one man band. You can always you can always help people do better work, become better at what they're doing, and also, become much better yourself than if you're in a room, you know, reading hacker news.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, you're gonna you're gonna be better if you have a chance to, in one way or another, work with other people. So, anyway, the the the short story is even at that time, I wanted to you know, I was writing screenplays all the time and writing feature length spec screenplays and stuff. And the the screenplay format for for people who haven't seen it is kind of a complicated technical format, and that's it's a pain in the butt to do it on a typewriter. And it's even more of a pain to go back and make revisions to things. And the film is it's much like software.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You you're continuously revising it until you actually get the product to the customer. So word processors, even at their primitive mid eighties form, were were really an important thing. Like, they were like, yeah. We totally want that. We want that right now.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I don't care if I have to shovel coal into the computer. It's still better than a typewriter. So I had, I had 3 roommates when I was in film school. 2 of them were film students, and the other one was a computer science student. And he said, well, if you wanna use word processing, you can go down to the computer lab, which was across the street from our dorm, and, and get an account on this this VAX computer.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And you get to use the cool word processor, like the really good text editor, e max. So I was there in film school writing screenplays with e max, and that was that was sort of how I got into using computers. Because they were so primitive, you had to develop maybe more computer skills than you would today. But I I was not there to develop computer skills. I was there to do word processing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But when I got out of film school, as I was struggling along writing spec screenplays and directing, you know, no budget music videos for bands that did not have labels. You know, I was also temping a lot. And and this is this is how the how the how the road forked for me as I was working in a lot of offices, to, like, pay my rent. And, I was in there as a production word processor. You know, I basically sit down and type legal briefs, a lot of them, a lot a lot of law firms, but I've worked for all kinds of companies.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Typing's a boring thing to do. So, you know, what you do is you look for opportunities to automate stuff. And if you've got a technical mind and you're curious about stuff like, oh, I can automate this and I can automate that. And, you know, I could write a for loop, and it would do it a bunch of times. And so, eventually, what happened is I learned to program really writing a package of add on macros to write screenwriting to do screenwriting with.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, you know, I WordPerfect at the time had a terrible but Turing complete programming environment, And I and a couple of other guys worked together to build screenwriting software, and we sold it. So it was an entrepreneurial venture in software back in the eighties and very early nineties. And that was sort of where I'd internalized a lot of things about programming. And then, you know, subsequently to that, I took a course in c and a course in Lisp and through UCLA Extension and just tried to backfill some of that information. But it was kind of a one thing led to another and in true, like, Los Angeles Hollywood style.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I had friends, and some of them needed some software, and I convinced them to do one thing or another that I didn't necessarily know very well at the time. But through the research I had been able to do, so this is probably the right solution for these guys. So I I did a lot of that. I did a lot of Macintosh relational database stuff, the an old 4 GL called 4th dimension, which again was a programming environment. So it was yet another programming language was proprietary to the tool.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It did have a compiler, and it did have the concept of pointers, so I got a lot of familiarity with that. And that that kinda takes us up to the the first software company that I worked for.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Your journey actually sounds very similar to my journey, and I have a question at the end of my story I'm gonna tell here for a second. So the question I'm gonna tell a story after the question. The question is, can you remember a time when you were a teenager or a child that really triggered your love for movies and film? Because it sounds like you you went to school for film and it took you 4 times to get in. And then you went on this journey, this broad journey of film and doing these projects and getting inter introduced to computers and all of that, which is a similar journey to me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I I can specifically remember a snowboarding trip that I went on when I was about 15 years old, 16 years old. It was kind of a a snow camp, and this is the first time I'd ever seen a Mac computer. It was probably the first time I'd seen a real computer in general. I think I was using a Tandy 5000 way back in the day. And so we are at the snowboard camp, and this guy had a computer, and he was filming with a Handycam, and he would film all day all the snowboarding stuff, and then he would edit the video and show the video at night.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>When all of us would gather after dinner, we'd see this video of everybody on the on the screen. And so that that memory specifically is what really pushed me into creativity, and I I went to school first for I did a little bit of film, and then I moved into graphic design and website design. So kind of a similar journey. I just kind of found a need and then did small projects for friends and grew from film to graphic design to mobile design, web design, all that kind of stuff. But is there a memory that you can recall that really kicked you off into this whole creativity realm, either when you were a kid or a teenager?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Is there that one memory in your brain that's always like, okay. That could have been the beginning stage for this entire journey?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: You know, I would say it crept up. You know, it was more more one of those things where there's a little bit of interest and a little bit of gratification, and both of those things kind of snowballed over time. You know, so there was no, like, the light shines down on me kind of moment. There were certainly I mean, there's certainly films that I watched, that were like, oh, yeah. This is, you know, this is a really significant film.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This is going to change things. Like, as a science fiction nerd growing up in the seventies, like, I would go see all the science fiction movies when they came out, and they were they were pretty uniformly terrible except for the Andromeda strain. But I remember sitting in the movie theater on opening day watching Star Wars going, like, oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This is this is it. Right? And and to a to a somewhat lesser extent, Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I thought was, like, cinematically more interesting, but not as not as kind of cultural and, filmmaking technology, paradigmatically different.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: So, so, like, you know, I could talk about the movie part. The technology part, you know, I think probably the reason I spent so much time in film and special effects and and that kind of stuff, was that computers, you know, for a man my age, computers at the time were not that interesting. They were a character mode. They were very hard to get a hold of. You know, I didn't didn't have one in my house.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Didn't have a color TV. Didn't have a VCR. Didn't have cable TV when I was growing up. Had to walk to school uphill both ways, etcetera, etcetera. But, right, it was just sort of normal at the at that time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so computers were extremely primitive, and I, you know, I did seek them out and got some time on them even as a teenager. But it it involved like, I bicycle to RadioShack, bought a book about basic programming, took it home, wrote a program on legal pads, bicycle back to RadioShack, and the the the clerk was, like, whatever. I don't know what he's doing. And I was, like, typing it into the computer so I could run it. You know, it didn't save it or anything.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's just, like, 300 lines of basic and oh, look. It works. What's what's this? You know? And so I had I had those kinds of experiences.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And one of the things that I found, like, the snowballing effect was what I what I would call the gratification loop of programming, which is you can do a little something and understand a little something, and then you see it work. And in creative endeavors, it's never that clear cut. You know? If you've worked on something for a long time, you have an idea if you're moving it in the direction yet or not. But, but in programming, it's just obvious, like, you did it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? So that kind of dopamine cycle, if you will, is a lot tighter. Now with digital production and especially now as you get into this AI and this generation stuff, I think people are gonna be having that dopamine cycle, with creative endeavors as well. So there's, you know, it's gonna all merge together eventually. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But there was no there was no one, like, technology There were a lot of little things that would guide me towards creative aspects or technology things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: It it sounds like it it really crept up on you and and it's all it sounded like in the beginning, it was more to solve an immediate need. Right? As you were working on different projects and you need to solve some immediate need that I need to send\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: you a screen play or pay my rent.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Exactly. And and that just reminds me of, you know, there was there was a company that I was at before where the CTO always said that that lazy people make the best engineers and and developers, and I always thought that was really strange. But the more I listened to him say it, it was really about, like like you mentioned, you're trying to solve for these automation or these automate away these mundane tasks, and you wanna be able to do that so you could free more of your time to do something more interesting. And it's not to say the act of of developing the work is lazy. It's just that you wanna solve something that a computer could do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, you know, now coming into the age of AI and everything else, it's, you know, all these possibilities\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: will go\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: into that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: Mark is, like, is it gonna be more more of that, or are we going into an entirely new and disruptive paradigm? And I the jury's still kinda out on that. Right. Could go either way. You kids are gonna have to figure it out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Yeah. Do you find it\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: I'm hoping I'm hoping it'll time out, like, just around the time I hit retirement AI figures out longevity and, and UBI.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's like at a certain point, you know, you get to computers had a limited capacity to solve a limited number of mechanical issues. They've obviously grown in technical ability to the point where it's Mhmm.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>At some point what it can do most of what a human can do or 90% and, you know, there are What are you saying?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: The 90% of what humans what humans have been able to contribute to the economy, particularly the industrial economy has been designed to be something that could eventually be replaced with a sufficiently capable machine. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: You know? So the a lot of the activity and I I I it is in fact a concern when I'm programming now and I'm writing something that's like, well, this is complex, but it doesn't really doesn't really dig into any kind of uniquely human things that I'm bringing to this solution. So I'm I'm right now just chewing on, like, what can I do to, to offload that kind of work? You know, can I can I convince, a large language model to absorb a bunch of this complexity for me so that I can work more as a director? And and this is this is, like, the metaphor that that that I've been toying with a lot is, you know, you make a motion picture in what you're doing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And and I'm not to say, like, I haven't done Hollywood for 30 plus years. Right? So I've been a software engineer this whole time. But, the process is you gather people together. Everyone has a bit of expertise or has deep expertise at at at one or more skills, and you are going to combine that expertise to produce some something that's, you know, greater than the sum of its parts.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think a lot of work that we have is going to feel more more like the role of a producer or director in a film, you know, where and I like and believe me, it pains me to leave out actors and writers and and and people like that who have a lot of skill that they're bringing to the table. But but I think what you're really looking at is expressing an intent to some instrumentality that will deliver you a a solution based on that intent. You know? So show me a picture of an astronaut riding a unicorn might be your intent. You wanna see that for some reason.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then, just as you might have asked a human artist to produce that for you, now, you know, a an AI artist will produce that for you. Whether or not it's good or what you wanted, that I think that's the, the friction in the question that we have moving forward. I I have a lot of artist friends, and I would like to see them stay gainfully employed and bring all their many wonderful skills to, humanity still. So I don't, I don't I don't think there's a a quick solution to that. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I am digressing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Yeah. Do you find so I think back when all of us were you know, Pedro and I are certainly a little a little more junior than yourselves, not too much. You're you're not that much older than us. But back when we were getting into technology, whether it be videos or software or computers, you know, the the learning curve, in my opinion, was a little bit easier because there was only so many technologies that we could learn and study, you know, so we could dive into a programming language. You know, when I started diving into Dreamweaver, there really wasn't too much out there on the market to learn, so I kinda just went with one platform.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So it was a little bit easier back then. In today's age, you know, there's AI. There's all these other other languages to do everything. There's 500 ways to do everything. So do you find that more exciting that there's so many ways to accomplish a task, or do you find it more daunting?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And and do you still kind of traditionally go back to some fallbacks that you you are more comfortable with?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: So, you know, I I think this is a question that will always come up in in the life of any human being who's trying to be productive in in a world of economic value exchange these days. Right? It's been a long time since I felt like I had great depth in a piece of technology. You know? Like, I started as a web developer at Google in 2006, and I thought, like, okay.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I have more depth in this than most people, but I don't feel that way now, like, well over 15 years later. So it's, you know, the the the the technology, space will always grow.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Mhmm.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: There is there's always a trade off between building out your production capacity and producing. Right? And some people get obsessed with production and ignore production capacity, and some people will go the other way. When I was word processing, I often would encounter a certain sort of person who would say, well, I'll just retype it. And I was like, you could copy paste it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You could write a macro. You could write a mer mail merge program. You know, there are a lot of things you could do if you invested some time in understanding something that would pay off not only for this project. It might be a wash in terms of this one thing, but then it would pay off again and again and again moving forward. And I still have those conversations within my own head every day when I'm writing software.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? It's like, how much do I refactor this today? How per how how much production do I have to get done today to accomplish all the other goals that I'm trying to do? And how much, how much infrastructure should I be putting down for myself or learning about to increase my my capacity moving forward. It's continual juggling act and, sometimes in opposition to, this gratification loop.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, it is not gratifying to have a bug you can't figure out. That's just a pain in the butt. It's no fun to write unit tests. That is just a pain in the butt. But if you write the unit tests, you may not have to deal with the bug, and they'll pile up and give you more and more robust code and better understanding of the code that you've already written because you can refer to the tests.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And as my my colleagues will tell you, I am not the most meticulous of unit testers, particularly for user interface code, But I always find that it pays off. So that's the same thing with acquiring knowledge or studying things. It's like, it'll always pay off, but you have to balance it out with what you have to get done, like, right now. But I think most people on the side of production over increasing production capacity, especially especially people who are newer.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: One of my next questions was going to be around the future because, obviously, we're in this these days where I mentioned there's kinda new technology every week. There's just something different, including AI. So how do you see you've already mentioned some of the things that you're building. You see them being used for the next 10 to 15 years. I guess, where do you see some stability in what you're what people are developing these days that'll be around for a long term in a long time also, long term long time?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But what are some things that you think are kind of at the end of their life cycle or things that are being developed that really have a a short shelf life? Is there anything in your head that you see both on the short term side of things and the long term side of things?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: Do you\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: think do you think AI will, like I I personally think AI is gonna change the game. It'll it'll morph over time, but I think AI is gonna be around a long time as opposed to maybe something like NFTs, which kinda came and went quickly. So I'm just kinda curious if there's anything you've ever thought about along those lines.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: Well, I mean, there have been a few times where I'm like, okay. This is this is an important thing. I'm really gonna have to dig in on this. And, some of it's philosophical. So the big technology choices that I've made where I've decided to spend time in a discretionary way and not at the behest of an employer has always been what is technology that is going to be portable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And by that, I mean, knowledge and understanding that is not at that is not controlled by a single vendor, particularly, and that can be applied broadly. So JavaScript, I learned on my own time. You know? By day, I was programming in c plus plus. Machine learning and AI, I am still learning on my own time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? And the prod the side projects that I'm doing around that are all on my own time. They're not they're not any learning how to do, you know, that web 2.0 style AJAX JavaScript stuff. That was all that was all stuff I thought, well, I need to know how to do this regardless of who's paying me. So you're you're looking for moments in the marketplace where it's like, like, people people are gonna want this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>People are gonna want more and more of it, and no vendor is going to capture all the value from it. You know, I I spent a chunk of time in the nineties as a, a Windows developer. So I was writing an application, couple several applications for the Windows platform. And I did not go home and screw around with Windows in the evenings because I, like you know, however you might feel about Windows technically, that was that was Microsoft's game. You were always gonna be playing in Microsoft's game if you were developing for Windows.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I I think, you know, I have the same skittishness about building stuff that could only work with the OpenAI APIs. I think OpenAI is doing great work. You know? Windows became dominant by being the thing that people want, and I think AI is doing the same thing in collaboration with Microsoft to some extent. So I'm I'm skittish about that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? I I had some interest in the the crypto space, particularly the, you know, executing code on on chain Mhmm. Because it had the promise of giving us a mechanism where the infrastructure wasn't owned or controlled by a particular entity. The reality is a lot fuzzier and not nearly as as idealistic as I would have wanted. But that was where, you know, the interest that I did have in it came from.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's this idea that I can create value and I can distribute that value and I can I can get, remunerated for the effort that I put into creating that value in some way that is not, at the at the whim of some some other provider platform owner, or potential competitor? So that's why I've always been very big on web based technologies, even though I spent several years at Google writing, you know, iOS native apps. So that's that's sort of, you know, a roundabout way of saying, what do you what do you think you can take with you? You know? What will, there as OpenAI starts to, like, announce, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Look. We've cut our price in half, and we've we've introduced retrieval augmented, generation. And, you know, what companies are basically were only doing that, plus not very much else that are now, like Mhmm. You know, their heads are exploding. Oh my god, you know, we're only 3 times cheaper than OpenAI used to be and, you know, now we don't have a competitive mode.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So there's a certain amount of figuring out what can you do. I mean, it's the same thing. You know? Go back to Hollywood. It's the same thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? What have you got? The only thing that you've got that's different from anything anybody else has is your unique intent and your unique perspective on the world and your take on a problem and your your skills at working towards a solution that embraces what's unique about you. And I think that, you know, if I were gonna give this as advice, you know, scratch your own itch and be really scared of proprietary platforms. And whether the platform is, you know, Google or Facebook or you know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I I I don't see it as much as I used to, but there was a long time I would run into kids who were like, c sharp is the best. We're gonna, like, build this with c sharp. And it's, like, you know, however however good old programming language c sharp might be, it was entirely the play toy of people in Redmond. And you're you're locking yourself into a particular vendor and when you do that. So, you know, there's there's usually a platform and a platform a set of platform technologies.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And if it's a proprietary platform and they're starting to move you to proprietary technologies, you're like, well, how confident am I in this platform? How much do I believe? How much am I going to risk my career on the Atari ST or the 3 d o game console or, you know, the Amiga 2 1,000 or the Palm Pilot. You know, there are all these technologies that, you know, were opportunities for people. Like, I shipped this app on this platform, and the platform's getting uptake, and it's gonna be great.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But then if it loses a platform battle, then you're kind of stuck. Like, okay. I've gotta personally retool to either target a new platform, or you could make technology choices and, you know, choices about your own efforts that will lead you to knowledge, skill, and understanding that you can take with you to the next thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: I think, Gavin, I I think we could probably continue this conversation for an hour. But, what I'd like to do is kind of allow you to wrap up with a little we know that I like to talk. We know that you like to talk. But I'd love to wrap all of this up. You've got a a very incredible and kind of experienced life of just different things that you've tried, different technologies you've seen.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, if you have one piece of advice or one thing that you love that you want to make sure everybody knows about, I mean, give us, like, a good as long as you want outro of kind of some of the some of the things that you've learned, advice you have for others, things that you you care about.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: Oh, you mean you're, like, giving an old man permission to rant for just a minute? Okay.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Yeah. Go yeah. Go for it. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: So so if you're at the beginning of your software engineering career, I would still recommend that you learn how to type at least about 40 words a minute with some accuracy. There's plenty of ways to learn to do that. It's worth the effort because it will clear space in your head for things that are actually difficult problems if you don't have to worry about the mechanical stress of typing something. This is probably not gonna be advice that's gonna be worth anything in 20 years, but it's going to be advice that's useful for the next 5. So that's a little thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>A little thing that I've been doing more recently that has been helpful is, this is such a cliche, regular exercise. I am I've been doing barbell stuff. Obviously, I'm not a giant person, but the thing that I didn't expect to get out of it, the the physical benefits are, of course, all the ones you hear about. The thing that I didn't expect to get out of it was the psychological training of stepping up and repeatedly doing something difficult that you didn't want to do in the moment in order to get a benefit further down the line. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And just that mental exercise is incredibly valuable. If you're if you're getting it while you, you know, exercise your body, if you're like most Americans, you will be ahead of most Americans. So it's it's worth doing, and I say this as someone who despises my time in the gym. But that the mental thing was, like, the unusual thing, and it's something that I I would encourage, especially, programmers who are all interested in technology to explore and spend some time on, and it'll it'll pay off. The time the time will come back to you, many fold, especially over the the length of your life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The other thing is get out and engage with people. Almost all the jobs that I've had had a component of knowing someone. And it's not to say that people hired me because they knew me, but they wanted to hire me because they knew me, if that makes any sense. Like, I had to be able to do the job and convince everyone and convince people who didn't know me I could do the job. But the personal connections, were always really important, And they were connections forged by oftentimes working with someone and demonstrating over a period of weeks or months or sometimes years that I could do a job, that I was good to work with, that I wasn't that I was trying to contribute towards the success of the project and to their success.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that, you know, wouldn't say it ingratiated me, but it meant that they they knew it they knew what I was about, and they could trust me and that they would they would be my champion, you know, at the next place. It's like, oh, and, you know, combine that sometimes with the skills that that are necessary at that moment in technology history. I think that was that was a good a good combination for a lot of my career. You know, there are people I work with now that I worked with 20 years ago at the startup I left Picasa for. So they kept on with their careers and, you know, when I was looking for something new to do, they're like, well, you know, we're starting up this new technology group.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You could come come be the first hire, hire your own boss. So, you know all of those things. Life is long. Your relationships with other people are going to be valuable to you while you have them and then later on. You shouldn't have them for their later value.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You should have them to be present with other people now. You know, be collegial if if that's all you've got in common, and if you have other interests that you share, by all means, you know, talk about them. I I have a friend that I worked at at 5 different companies with in Los Angeles, including, including Google. So, we just you know, wherever one of us landed, we'd go like, you know, I think Mike's available or I think Gavin's available. And, you know, that that worked out well for both of us over time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, you know, keep up with people. They're they're important, And, you know, find ways to work on projects with people. If you're if you're early on, especially if you're not in a, you know, a big metropolis with a lot of technology going on, You know, open work on open source projects with people, take their take their poll request reviews seriously, Try to contribute to the project. What's in it for you is the process of contributing, not not a an immediate byproduct.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: It's like, one of my my oldest son was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to, like, you know, help you out in your old age, dad, you know? And I'm like, you don't owe me anything. You know? The the the the good that I got out of the process of raising you was the process of raising you. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Go have your own great life. And that's that's where I wanna end it. Go have your own great life. Like, technology is a a great thing to do. If you hate it, though, you should find something else to do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Pedro Pizzaro: Yeah. Absolutely. So parting words of wisdom from Gavin. Work out your work out your body, work out your mind, and get out there, meet as many people as you can, form that community. And Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, I think that's what life's about. Alright. Is there anywhere that people can follow your work, or do you have a website or a blog or maybe just a social media?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin Doughtie: Well, I have a cop website as they used to call it at gavin dotcom, which is a an a ill maintained WordPress blog. You can find me, I'm still a little more active on x than I that I'm comfortable with, but you can find me at Gavin Doughty on on Twitter. Twitter, Elon. And, and and basically, the way you spell my name is weird enough that I have no hopes of Internet privacy at this point in my life. So it's Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Gavin, g a v I n, like the governor of California, and Doughty is d o u g h t I e, like bread dough in a necktie.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>John Daniels: Yeah. Well, yeah, I I also will second Pedro's, words there. I I definitely appreciate the advice that you gave at the end outside of technology. Pedro and I have been at the same you know, worked at 3 companies together. We Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Kind of are have that human to human relationship. Funnily enough, on a second topic, today is my 15th Twitterversary. So I've been on Twitter for 15 years today. But, yeah, I would definitely appreciate the the the technical and nontechnical advice you you gave today, Gavin. I think a lot of our viewers will appreciate both of those because getting out amongst humans, I think, is important as we start to enter this world of, VR headsets.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So we'll stay real out of the matrix while we do. But, but we appreciate the time today, and and, hopefully, people can give some feedback about what they've learned from your your story.\u003C/p>","There was no one, like, technology There were a lot of little things that would guide me towards creative aspects or technology things. Welcome, Gavin. Thanks for joining, John and I on the podcast today. You know, obviously, as as we know, you know, you're a senior dev at Aon, and we wanted to get some background on on your career, the lessons that you've learned, going from development to senior development and some management and leadership in there, and really touch on your background to see if it's if it's useful for the folks who are listening in. Definitely gonna be useful for John and I. But we'd love to learn a little bit more about your background quickly if you'd like to summarize it in your own words. And, yeah, we can kick things off. I was born yeah. So I, I grew up in Houston, Texas. My father was a professor at Rice University, and, unlike you might expect, he taught Elizabethan folk songs and ballads and English literature. But it was a very technical college, so I spent a lot of my, like, childhood time hanging out on a college campus, and a lot of my my peers were other faculty brats. And so there was a certain amount of cultural predestination towards reading things. So I did a lot of that growing up, read a lot of science fiction. Because of science fiction, I like science fiction movies. Because of science fiction movies, I like Star Trek. Because Star Trek, I went to science fiction conventions. Because of that, I saw some Ray Harryhausen movies with stop motion monsters. I got all excited about special effects and making movies. After that, I said, well, I'm gonna go to film school, and I'm gonna go to I'm gonna go to USC Film School, which was the one that, you know, George Lucas went to and now has funded heavily. And I applied. I applied you know, my backup schools were UCLA and NYU. So I got into, the film school at NYU, and I got into, UCLA as not just a regular undeclared undergraduate. And USC Film School rejected me. And so I'm I'm, like, I am not staying in Houston, Texas a minute longer. I'm gonna go to UCLA. So I went there and started doing classes and meeting people and figuring out how to live in Los Angeles, and I kept applying to film school. And the second time I applied though, they also rejected me. But I, you know, I, like, learned some stuff from that, and, and then worked on my application and applied. And then the third time I applied, they also rejected me, but the 4th the 4th time worked. Goodness. So, so I started, at USC's film school as a junior in the early eighties, and I went there for a couple of years. And I worked on people's student films. But the, the thing that I think a lot of people miss out is you just do a lot of production, when you start out. You know? So you don't get too precious about it, and you try a lot of different things. And you come in and show it to your peers, and they critique it. And you try to, like, clamp down on your own defensiveness long enough to take a lesson away from it and try to improve the work you do the next time, and we were all helping each other out. And then when you're working on someone else's film, instead of doing it all yourself and being totally in control, you have to learn how to give up control and and get something from someone else to allow them to contribute and allow them to learn how to contribute if their skills in one area or another are not as strong as yours. And that idea that it's not a you're not a one man band. You can always you can always help people do better work, become better at what they're doing, and also, become much better yourself than if you're in a room, you know, reading hacker news. You know, you're gonna you're gonna be better if you have a chance to, in one way or another, work with other people. So, anyway, the the the short story is even at that time, I wanted to you know, I was writing screenplays all the time and writing feature length spec screenplays and stuff. And the the screenplay format for for people who haven't seen it is kind of a complicated technical format, and that's it's a pain in the butt to do it on a typewriter. And it's even more of a pain to go back and make revisions to things. And the film is it's much like software. You you're continuously revising it until you actually get the product to the customer. So word processors, even at their primitive mid eighties form, were were really an important thing. Like, they were like, yeah. We totally want that. We want that right now. I don't care if I have to shovel coal into the computer. It's still better than a typewriter. So I had, I had 3 roommates when I was in film school. 2 of them were film students, and the other one was a computer science student. And he said, well, if you wanna use word processing, you can go down to the computer lab, which was across the street from our dorm, and, and get an account on this this VAX computer. And you get to use the cool word processor, like the really good text editor, e max. So I was there in film school writing screenplays with e max, and that was that was sort of how I got into using computers. Because they were so primitive, you had to develop maybe more computer skills than you would today. But I I was not there to develop computer skills. I was there to do word processing. But when I got out of film school, as I was struggling along writing spec screenplays and directing, you know, no budget music videos for bands that did not have labels. You know, I was also temping a lot. And and this is this is how the how the how the road forked for me as I was working in a lot of offices, to, like, pay my rent. And, I was in there as a production word processor. You know, I basically sit down and type legal briefs, a lot of them, a lot a lot of law firms, but I've worked for all kinds of companies. Typing's a boring thing to do. So, you know, what you do is you look for opportunities to automate stuff. And if you've got a technical mind and you're curious about stuff like, oh, I can automate this and I can automate that. And, you know, I could write a for loop, and it would do it a bunch of times. And so, eventually, what happened is I learned to program really writing a package of add on macros to write screenwriting to do screenwriting with. So, you know, I WordPerfect at the time had a terrible but Turing complete programming environment, And I and a couple of other guys worked together to build screenwriting software, and we sold it. So it was an entrepreneurial venture in software back in the eighties and very early nineties. And that was sort of where I'd internalized a lot of things about programming. And then, you know, subsequently to that, I took a course in c and a course in Lisp and through UCLA Extension and just tried to backfill some of that information. But it was kind of a one thing led to another and in true, like, Los Angeles Hollywood style. I had friends, and some of them needed some software, and I convinced them to do one thing or another that I didn't necessarily know very well at the time. But through the research I had been able to do, so this is probably the right solution for these guys. So I I did a lot of that. I did a lot of Macintosh relational database stuff, the an old 4 GL called 4th dimension, which again was a programming environment. So it was yet another programming language was proprietary to the tool. It did have a compiler, and it did have the concept of pointers, so I got a lot of familiarity with that. And that that kinda takes us up to the the first software company that I worked for. Your journey actually sounds very similar to my journey, and I have a question at the end of my story I'm gonna tell here for a second. So the question I'm gonna tell a story after the question. The question is, can you remember a time when you were a teenager or a child that really triggered your love for movies and film? Because it sounds like you you went to school for film and it took you 4 times to get in. And then you went on this journey, this broad journey of film and doing these projects and getting inter introduced to computers and all of that, which is a similar journey to me. I I can specifically remember a snowboarding trip that I went on when I was about 15 years old, 16 years old. It was kind of a a snow camp, and this is the first time I'd ever seen a Mac computer. It was probably the first time I'd seen a real computer in general. I think I was using a Tandy 5000 way back in the day. And so we are at the snowboard camp, and this guy had a computer, and he was filming with a Handycam, and he would film all day all the snowboarding stuff, and then he would edit the video and show the video at night. When all of us would gather after dinner, we'd see this video of everybody on the on the screen. And so that that memory specifically is what really pushed me into creativity, and I I went to school first for I did a little bit of film, and then I moved into graphic design and website design. So kind of a similar journey. I just kind of found a need and then did small projects for friends and grew from film to graphic design to mobile design, web design, all that kind of stuff. But is there a memory that you can recall that really kicked you off into this whole creativity realm, either when you were a kid or a teenager? Is there that one memory in your brain that's always like, okay. That could have been the beginning stage for this entire journey? You know, I would say it crept up. You know, it was more more one of those things where there's a little bit of interest and a little bit of gratification, and both of those things kind of snowballed over time. You know, so there was no, like, the light shines down on me kind of moment. There were certainly I mean, there's certainly films that I watched, that were like, oh, yeah. This is, you know, this is a really significant film. This is going to change things. Like, as a science fiction nerd growing up in the seventies, like, I would go see all the science fiction movies when they came out, and they were they were pretty uniformly terrible except for the Andromeda strain. But I remember sitting in the movie theater on opening day watching Star Wars going, like, oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. This is this is it. Right? And and to a to a somewhat lesser extent, Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I thought was, like, cinematically more interesting, but not as not as kind of cultural and, filmmaking technology, paradigmatically different. Yeah. So, so, like, you know, I could talk about the movie part. The technology part, you know, I think probably the reason I spent so much time in film and special effects and and that kind of stuff, was that computers, you know, for a man my age, computers at the time were not that interesting. They were a character mode. They were very hard to get a hold of. You know, I didn't didn't have one in my house. Didn't have a color TV. Didn't have a VCR. Didn't have cable TV when I was growing up. Had to walk to school uphill both ways, etcetera, etcetera. But, right, it was just sort of normal at the at that time. And so computers were extremely primitive, and I, you know, I did seek them out and got some time on them even as a teenager. But it it involved like, I bicycle to RadioShack, bought a book about basic programming, took it home, wrote a program on legal pads, bicycle back to RadioShack, and the the the clerk was, like, whatever. I don't know what he's doing. And I was, like, typing it into the computer so I could run it. You know, it didn't save it or anything. It's just, like, 300 lines of basic and oh, look. It works. What's what's this? You know? And so I had I had those kinds of experiences. And one of the things that I found, like, the snowballing effect was what I what I would call the gratification loop of programming, which is you can do a little something and understand a little something, and then you see it work. And in creative endeavors, it's never that clear cut. You know? If you've worked on something for a long time, you have an idea if you're moving it in the direction yet or not. But, but in programming, it's just obvious, like, you did it. Right? So that kind of dopamine cycle, if you will, is a lot tighter. Now with digital production and especially now as you get into this AI and this generation stuff, I think people are gonna be having that dopamine cycle, with creative endeavors as well. So there's, you know, it's gonna all merge together eventually. Yeah. But there was no there was no one, like, technology There were a lot of little things that would guide me towards creative aspects or technology things. It it sounds like it it really crept up on you and and it's all it sounded like in the beginning, it was more to solve an immediate need. Right? As you were working on different projects and you need to solve some immediate need that I need to send you a screen play or pay my rent. Exactly. And and that just reminds me of, you know, there was there was a company that I was at before where the CTO always said that that lazy people make the best engineers and and developers, and I always thought that was really strange. But the more I listened to him say it, it was really about, like like you mentioned, you're trying to solve for these automation or these automate away these mundane tasks, and you wanna be able to do that so you could free more of your time to do something more interesting. And it's not to say the act of of developing the work is lazy. It's just that you wanna solve something that a computer could do. And, you know, now coming into the age of AI and everything else, it's, you know, all these possibilities will go into that. Mark is, like, is it gonna be more more of that, or are we going into an entirely new and disruptive paradigm? And I the jury's still kinda out on that. Right. Could go either way. You kids are gonna have to figure it out. Yeah. Do you find it I'm hoping I'm hoping it'll time out, like, just around the time I hit retirement AI figures out longevity and, and UBI. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's like at a certain point, you know, you get to computers had a limited capacity to solve a limited number of mechanical issues. They've obviously grown in technical ability to the point where it's Mhmm. At some point what it can do most of what a human can do or 90% and, you know, there are What are you saying? The 90% of what humans what humans have been able to contribute to the economy, particularly the industrial economy has been designed to be something that could eventually be replaced with a sufficiently capable machine. Right? Right. You know? So the a lot of the activity and I I I it is in fact a concern when I'm programming now and I'm writing something that's like, well, this is complex, but it doesn't really doesn't really dig into any kind of uniquely human things that I'm bringing to this solution. So I'm I'm right now just chewing on, like, what can I do to, to offload that kind of work? You know, can I can I convince, a large language model to absorb a bunch of this complexity for me so that I can work more as a director? And and this is this is, like, the metaphor that that that I've been toying with a lot is, you know, you make a motion picture in what you're doing. And and I'm not to say, like, I haven't done Hollywood for 30 plus years. Right? So I've been a software engineer this whole time. But, the process is you gather people together. Everyone has a bit of expertise or has deep expertise at at at one or more skills, and you are going to combine that expertise to produce some something that's, you know, greater than the sum of its parts. And I think a lot of work that we have is going to feel more more like the role of a producer or director in a film, you know, where and I like and believe me, it pains me to leave out actors and writers and and and people like that who have a lot of skill that they're bringing to the table. But but I think what you're really looking at is expressing an intent to some instrumentality that will deliver you a a solution based on that intent. You know? So show me a picture of an astronaut riding a unicorn might be your intent. You wanna see that for some reason. And then, just as you might have asked a human artist to produce that for you, now, you know, a an AI artist will produce that for you. Whether or not it's good or what you wanted, that I think that's the, the friction in the question that we have moving forward. I I have a lot of artist friends, and I would like to see them stay gainfully employed and bring all their many wonderful skills to, humanity still. So I don't, I don't I don't think there's a a quick solution to that. Yeah. But I am digressing. Yeah. Do you find so I think back when all of us were you know, Pedro and I are certainly a little a little more junior than yourselves, not too much. You're you're not that much older than us. But back when we were getting into technology, whether it be videos or software or computers, you know, the the learning curve, in my opinion, was a little bit easier because there was only so many technologies that we could learn and study, you know, so we could dive into a programming language. You know, when I started diving into Dreamweaver, there really wasn't too much out there on the market to learn, so I kinda just went with one platform. So it was a little bit easier back then. In today's age, you know, there's AI. There's all these other other languages to do everything. There's 500 ways to do everything. So do you find that more exciting that there's so many ways to accomplish a task, or do you find it more daunting? And and do you still kind of traditionally go back to some fallbacks that you you are more comfortable with? So, you know, I I think this is a question that will always come up in in the life of any human being who's trying to be productive in in a world of economic value exchange these days. Right? It's been a long time since I felt like I had great depth in a piece of technology. You know? Like, I started as a web developer at Google in 2006, and I thought, like, okay. I have more depth in this than most people, but I don't feel that way now, like, well over 15 years later. So it's, you know, the the the the technology, space will always grow. Mhmm. There is there's always a trade off between building out your production capacity and producing. Right? And some people get obsessed with production and ignore production capacity, and some people will go the other way. When I was word processing, I often would encounter a certain sort of person who would say, well, I'll just retype it. And I was like, you could copy paste it. You could write a macro. You could write a mer mail merge program. You know, there are a lot of things you could do if you invested some time in understanding something that would pay off not only for this project. It might be a wash in terms of this one thing, but then it would pay off again and again and again moving forward. And I still have those conversations within my own head every day when I'm writing software. Right? It's like, how much do I refactor this today? How per how how much production do I have to get done today to accomplish all the other goals that I'm trying to do? And how much, how much infrastructure should I be putting down for myself or learning about to increase my my capacity moving forward. It's continual juggling act and, sometimes in opposition to, this gratification loop. Like, it is not gratifying to have a bug you can't figure out. That's just a pain in the butt. It's no fun to write unit tests. That is just a pain in the butt. But if you write the unit tests, you may not have to deal with the bug, and they'll pile up and give you more and more robust code and better understanding of the code that you've already written because you can refer to the tests. And as my my colleagues will tell you, I am not the most meticulous of unit testers, particularly for user interface code, But I always find that it pays off. So that's the same thing with acquiring knowledge or studying things. It's like, it'll always pay off, but you have to balance it out with what you have to get done, like, right now. But I think most people on the side of production over increasing production capacity, especially especially people who are newer. One of my next questions was going to be around the future because, obviously, we're in this these days where I mentioned there's kinda new technology every week. There's just something different, including AI. So how do you see you've already mentioned some of the things that you're building. You see them being used for the next 10 to 15 years. I guess, where do you see some stability in what you're what people are developing these days that'll be around for a long term in a long time also, long term long time? But what are some things that you think are kind of at the end of their life cycle or things that are being developed that really have a a short shelf life? Is there anything in your head that you see both on the short term side of things and the long term side of things? Do you think do you think AI will, like I I personally think AI is gonna change the game. It'll it'll morph over time, but I think AI is gonna be around a long time as opposed to maybe something like NFTs, which kinda came and went quickly. So I'm just kinda curious if there's anything you've ever thought about along those lines. Well, I mean, there have been a few times where I'm like, okay. This is this is an important thing. I'm really gonna have to dig in on this. And, some of it's philosophical. So the big technology choices that I've made where I've decided to spend time in a discretionary way and not at the behest of an employer has always been what is technology that is going to be portable. And by that, I mean, knowledge and understanding that is not at that is not controlled by a single vendor, particularly, and that can be applied broadly. So JavaScript, I learned on my own time. You know? By day, I was programming in c plus plus. Machine learning and AI, I am still learning on my own time. You know? And the prod the side projects that I'm doing around that are all on my own time. They're not they're not any learning how to do, you know, that web 2.0 style AJAX JavaScript stuff. That was all that was all stuff I thought, well, I need to know how to do this regardless of who's paying me. So you're you're looking for moments in the marketplace where it's like, like, people people are gonna want this. People are gonna want more and more of it, and no vendor is going to capture all the value from it. You know, I I spent a chunk of time in the nineties as a, a Windows developer. So I was writing an application, couple several applications for the Windows platform. And I did not go home and screw around with Windows in the evenings because I, like you know, however you might feel about Windows technically, that was that was Microsoft's game. You were always gonna be playing in Microsoft's game if you were developing for Windows. And I I think, you know, I have the same skittishness about building stuff that could only work with the OpenAI APIs. I think OpenAI is doing great work. You know? Windows became dominant by being the thing that people want, and I think AI is doing the same thing in collaboration with Microsoft to some extent. So I'm I'm skittish about that. You know? I I had some interest in the the crypto space, particularly the, you know, executing code on on chain Mhmm. Because it had the promise of giving us a mechanism where the infrastructure wasn't owned or controlled by a particular entity. The reality is a lot fuzzier and not nearly as as idealistic as I would have wanted. But that was where, you know, the interest that I did have in it came from. It's this idea that I can create value and I can distribute that value and I can I can get, remunerated for the effort that I put into creating that value in some way that is not, at the at the whim of some some other provider platform owner, or potential competitor? So that's why I've always been very big on web based technologies, even though I spent several years at Google writing, you know, iOS native apps. So that's that's sort of, you know, a roundabout way of saying, what do you what do you think you can take with you? You know? What will, there as OpenAI starts to, like, announce, hey. Look. We've cut our price in half, and we've we've introduced retrieval augmented, generation. And, you know, what companies are basically were only doing that, plus not very much else that are now, like Mhmm. You know, their heads are exploding. Oh my god, you know, we're only 3 times cheaper than OpenAI used to be and, you know, now we don't have a competitive mode. So there's a certain amount of figuring out what can you do. I mean, it's the same thing. You know? Go back to Hollywood. It's the same thing. You know? What have you got? The only thing that you've got that's different from anything anybody else has is your unique intent and your unique perspective on the world and your take on a problem and your your skills at working towards a solution that embraces what's unique about you. And I think that, you know, if I were gonna give this as advice, you know, scratch your own itch and be really scared of proprietary platforms. And whether the platform is, you know, Google or Facebook or you know? I I I don't see it as much as I used to, but there was a long time I would run into kids who were like, c sharp is the best. We're gonna, like, build this with c sharp. And it's, like, you know, however however good old programming language c sharp might be, it was entirely the play toy of people in Redmond. And you're you're locking yourself into a particular vendor and when you do that. So, you know, there's there's usually a platform and a platform a set of platform technologies. And if it's a proprietary platform and they're starting to move you to proprietary technologies, you're like, well, how confident am I in this platform? How much do I believe? How much am I going to risk my career on the Atari ST or the 3 d o game console or, you know, the Amiga 2 1,000 or the Palm Pilot. You know, there are all these technologies that, you know, were opportunities for people. Like, I shipped this app on this platform, and the platform's getting uptake, and it's gonna be great. But then if it loses a platform battle, then you're kind of stuck. Like, okay. I've gotta personally retool to either target a new platform, or you could make technology choices and, you know, choices about your own efforts that will lead you to knowledge, skill, and understanding that you can take with you to the next thing. I think, Gavin, I I think we could probably continue this conversation for an hour. But, what I'd like to do is kind of allow you to wrap up with a little we know that I like to talk. We know that you like to talk. But I'd love to wrap all of this up. You've got a a very incredible and kind of experienced life of just different things that you've tried, different technologies you've seen. You know, if you have one piece of advice or one thing that you love that you want to make sure everybody knows about, I mean, give us, like, a good as long as you want outro of kind of some of the some of the things that you've learned, advice you have for others, things that you you care about. Oh, you mean you're, like, giving an old man permission to rant for just a minute? Okay. Yeah. Go yeah. Go for it. Yeah. So so if you're at the beginning of your software engineering career, I would still recommend that you learn how to type at least about 40 words a minute with some accuracy. There's plenty of ways to learn to do that. It's worth the effort because it will clear space in your head for things that are actually difficult problems if you don't have to worry about the mechanical stress of typing something. This is probably not gonna be advice that's gonna be worth anything in 20 years, but it's going to be advice that's useful for the next 5. So that's a little thing. A little thing that I've been doing more recently that has been helpful is, this is such a cliche, regular exercise. I am I've been doing barbell stuff. Obviously, I'm not a giant person, but the thing that I didn't expect to get out of it, the the physical benefits are, of course, all the ones you hear about. The thing that I didn't expect to get out of it was the psychological training of stepping up and repeatedly doing something difficult that you didn't want to do in the moment in order to get a benefit further down the line. Right? And just that mental exercise is incredibly valuable. If you're if you're getting it while you, you know, exercise your body, if you're like most Americans, you will be ahead of most Americans. So it's it's worth doing, and I say this as someone who despises my time in the gym. But that the mental thing was, like, the unusual thing, and it's something that I I would encourage, especially, programmers who are all interested in technology to explore and spend some time on, and it'll it'll pay off. The time the time will come back to you, many fold, especially over the the length of your life. The other thing is get out and engage with people. Almost all the jobs that I've had had a component of knowing someone. And it's not to say that people hired me because they knew me, but they wanted to hire me because they knew me, if that makes any sense. Like, I had to be able to do the job and convince everyone and convince people who didn't know me I could do the job. But the personal connections, were always really important, And they were connections forged by oftentimes working with someone and demonstrating over a period of weeks or months or sometimes years that I could do a job, that I was good to work with, that I wasn't that I was trying to contribute towards the success of the project and to their success. And that, you know, wouldn't say it ingratiated me, but it meant that they they knew it they knew what I was about, and they could trust me and that they would they would be my champion, you know, at the next place. It's like, oh, and, you know, combine that sometimes with the skills that that are necessary at that moment in technology history. I think that was that was a good a good combination for a lot of my career. You know, there are people I work with now that I worked with 20 years ago at the startup I left Picasa for. So they kept on with their careers and, you know, when I was looking for something new to do, they're like, well, you know, we're starting up this new technology group. You could come come be the first hire, hire your own boss. So, you know all of those things. Life is long. Your relationships with other people are going to be valuable to you while you have them and then later on. You shouldn't have them for their later value. You should have them to be present with other people now. You know, be collegial if if that's all you've got in common, and if you have other interests that you share, by all means, you know, talk about them. I I have a friend that I worked at at 5 different companies with in Los Angeles, including, including Google. So, we just you know, wherever one of us landed, we'd go like, you know, I think Mike's available or I think Gavin's available. And, you know, that that worked out well for both of us over time. So, you know, keep up with people. They're they're important, And, you know, find ways to work on projects with people. If you're if you're early on, especially if you're not in a, you know, a big metropolis with a lot of technology going on, You know, open work on open source projects with people, take their take their poll request reviews seriously, Try to contribute to the project. What's in it for you is the process of contributing, not not a an immediate byproduct. Yeah. It's like, one of my my oldest son was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to, like, you know, help you out in your old age, dad, you know? And I'm like, you don't owe me anything. You know? The the the the good that I got out of the process of raising you was the process of raising you. You know? Go have your own great life. And that's that's where I wanna end it. Go have your own great life. Like, technology is a a great thing to do. If you hate it, though, you should find something else to do. Yeah. Absolutely. So parting words of wisdom from Gavin. Work out your work out your body, work out your mind, and get out there, meet as many people as you can, form that community. And Yeah. You know, I think that's what life's about. Alright. Is there anywhere that people can follow your work, or do you have a website or a blog or maybe just a social media? Well, I have a cop website as they used to call it at gavin dotcom, which is a an a ill maintained WordPress blog. You can find me, I'm still a little more active on x than I that I'm comfortable with, but you can find me at Gavin Doughty on on Twitter. Twitter, Elon. And, and and basically, the way you spell my name is weird enough that I have no hopes of Internet privacy at this point in my life. So it's Yeah. Gavin, g a v I n, like the governor of California, and Doughty is d o u g h t I e, like bread dough in a necktie. Yeah. Well, yeah, I I also will second Pedro's, words there. I I definitely appreciate the advice that you gave at the end outside of technology. Pedro and I have been at the same you know, worked at 3 companies together. We Right. Kind of are have that human to human relationship. Funnily enough, on a second topic, today is my 15th Twitterversary. So I've been on Twitter for 15 years today. But, yeah, I would definitely appreciate the the the technical and nontechnical advice you you gave today, Gavin. I think a lot of our viewers will appreciate both of those because getting out amongst humans, I think, is important as we start to enter this world of, VR headsets. So we'll stay real out of the matrix while we do. But, but we appreciate the time today, and and, hopefully, people can give some feedback about what they've learned from your your story.",[198,199,200],"581c1c67-427f-4b12-9494-311dda7ea427","018227bf-9fc7-4ba3-a8ab-f6b77c240667","88f9dcfc-84f5-4a1b-a742-f8bd23f25edf",[],{"id":144,"number":145,"show":122,"year":146,"episodes":203},[148,149,150,151,152],{"id":150,"slug":205,"vimeo_id":206,"description":207,"tile":208,"length":209,"resources":8,"people":210,"episode_number":131,"published":216,"title":217,"video_transcript_html":218,"video_transcript_text":219,"content":8,"seo":8,"status":130,"episode_people":220,"recommendations":224,"season":225},"mateja-sela","896674382","In this episode, Mateja shares his experiences in founding and managing a company in the volatile cryptocurrency/blockchain sector, and the transition to a role in a larger organization.","cb8bc756-0496-4b47-b6c1-b66f59be60f8",34,[211,212,213],{"name":162,"url":163},{"name":165,"url":166},{"name":214,"url":215},"Mateja Sela","https://www.linkedin.com/in/mateja-sela/","2024-01-25","Mateja Sela, Engineering Manager at Bolt","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. When I was leaving the startup role, I was like, I'm gonna chill now. I'm gonna, like, take it easy. I'm gonna, like, you know and then I went to my job and I was like, I wanna keep this job, so I'm really stressed out. I really want to, you know, work with people and show that I'm worth it, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I think I'm never gonna be happy. That's the conclusion. No, I'm kidding.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us for this week's podcast. With us, we have Matea. Matea, I'll let you introduce yourself so that you can give you your best introduction and representation of yourself. Why don't you let everyone know a little bit of a brief background of who you are, where you're based, where you're located, and then we can kinda get into the questions after that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Sure. Sounds good. I'm Mateo. I'm a techie. I'm an engineering manager currently at Bolt, which is a ride hailing company mostly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We do a lot of stuff like food delivery, and, yeah, grocery delivery. So, it's a pretty big company. And, yeah, about myself, I don't know. I just ate, like, I cooked dinner in 5 minutes, and I ate it in 3. So I think I broke the record for, fastest eating and cooking of a meal after work.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Well, you know, real real quick inter real quick interjection. I used to work with a firefighter, and he was a record fast eater. He would eat a huge burrito in in probably 2 or 3 minutes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Oh, man. I could never I need to sit there and enjoy it, but, yeah, I get it sometimes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Me too, usually. But if you're here. You okay? Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So sorry. That's it. Yeah. I'm I'm yeah. I used to work for Artano.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, as as a CEO of Artano. It's an NFT platform. I guess that's the main reason why I'm here. And, yeah, I mean, generally, I am into, yeah, just, like, trendy new technologies. I was into crypto, have my own theories around that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, yeah, we talked about it briefly, before about, AI bros versus crypto bros. So I I think that's a topic probably we'll have to touch at some point. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm based in Estonia. Sorry. I forgot to say that. And I'm from Serbia originally.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Awesome. Sounds great. And what's your what do you do at your current role at Bolt?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So I'm an engineering manager. I manage a team of, 8 developers, mobile side, and, some Android, iOS, and back end. Yeah. And we are responsible for the app. So the, yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. I I don't think I can talk much about it yet because I'm new to the company as well. So yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure. Sure. Well, let's dive in a little bit into some of your previous experience. You mentioned you were a CEO.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So let's go even further back from that. When did you first starting start getting into technology? Did you go to school for it? And then I guess we can circle back around eventually to to becoming a CEO, but I'd love to understand, how you got into technology. Was it from a young age, or did did Twitter get you into it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Did you see somebody say something cool? So, yeah, I'd love to learn how you first started getting interested in technology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I think my dad is mostly to think for that. He's, somebody who introduced me to computers. He is a big Linux fan. So I was probably 4 years old when I ran my first games from Linux.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>He, like, forbade me to use the Windows. He was such an anti Windows guy. He was like, yeah, it's like the devil basically. And now today, you know, like, we think of these things a bit differently, but at the time it was like, you know, Linux is the best thing ever, and open source is the way to go. And, it's I guess that was the crypto of the time, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And now we have a bit of a different, yeah, outlook on things. And that's like the first time. So I was like 4 years old, I think, when I first started, like, a kernel command. But I'm not like I don't think I'm like a project kid or anything. I just, like, learned by heart how to run a game because I want to play it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: So you were smarter at 4 years old around technology than than most people are even still to this day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I don't think it's that hard to learn a command to write, like, open a kernel and write a command. But yeah. Maybe. I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Do you think it's any harder or easier than learning a language?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Sorry. What what running language?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Do you think it's any like, learning a coding language is any harder or easier than learning a, you know, verbal or written language?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It's an interesting question. So I'm somebody who likes learning languages. I speak fluently like French and German and Serbian. So and English, I guess. And I'm yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think it's something that's very interesting to compare, like linguistics of a language and how linguists learn things from, you know, how how, you know, programmers or people who code, how we learn things from linguistics, between I think music as well. Music is very mathematical. But music, yeah, computer science and and linguistics are pretty interesting. And\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: yeah. Nice. Nice. I I speak English, and that's about it. So, same with when it comes to coding languages.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I only know a couple. I was not as talented as yourself. So I I believe in our previous conversation, you mentioned going potentially to Oxford. So I'd love to understand what you went to school for. And did did your time at at university kind of lead you to want to start your own company?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Or, I guess, how did that transition go from going from university to eventually starting your own company?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So, yeah, I went to uni in the US. I went to Middlebury College. I studied computer science and German language. I did liberal arts. So that allowed me to, like, spring into different things, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, to to touch on different topics and mostly writing. I really liked writing, research. And yeah, so I went to Oxford for a kind of an independent study, independent research thing, in my 3rd year of college. And I was lucky enough to, you know, see this, how this world works. You know, you have a tutor, you have a 1 on 1 with a professor at Oxford, which is pretty incredible.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that's how they do things. It's like very 1 on 1 based, very like research based. You have a lot of readings. I don't think I've ever read that many books in my life. It was like stacks of books, on just like random medieval history topics because I just, I don't know, enjoyed it at the time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I don't know, like that helped me, I think, in analytical thinking. Right? Like you have always, some kind of learning from these things that are unrelated to computer science to technology. Right? So I think you can always learn from history, not as a like a history repeats itself sort of way, but as in like analytical thinking, how people were, you know, to put yourself in a mind of somebody 200 years ago or 300 years ago, and then write about it because what we perceive, I think in technology as well, what we perceive for, from the user perspective or as a developer is much different than the user, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, user is someone who is actually gonna use your software, and you're somebody who writes the code. So sometimes these 2 don't click. And that's when a lot of businesses fail, actually. I believe at least.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So, yeah. Go ahead, John. Yeah. I was\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: just I was just curious because, you know, Pedro and I both have started our own businesses for different purposes. Mine was not technology based. Pedro's was a little bit. So I'm curious, again, what what led you to start your own business, and then, what were some of the lessons that you learned in running a business? Because, obviously, you're in a different position now, which we can we can kind of transition into later in the conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, what were some of the lessons that you learned starting a business and then running a business?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, I think the biggest lesson is, to not follow your gut instinct and follow the money, however awful and capitalistic that sounds. You know, I had this dream of a marketplace that was, you know, open and curated by the community and very, yeah, like, just, open to to, let's say, new markets to especially African market, Asia and South America. That's where we focused our kind of initial, let's say, first wave of of, sales. And, like, yeah, you just learned that sometimes what you dream of building and the the ideals that you have as a person don't necessarily reflect on your business, on the numbers. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So yes they reflected on the people we got. Like we got amazing artists who had the same vision, the same goals as us. We got an amazing you know team but it just didn't translate to business every time. So we learned over time, of course, to to follow this, like, smell of money, I guess. But, yeah, that didn't work out as as we expected.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Maybe we'll talk about it as well a bit. But, yeah. So that's it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. How did you go about, like, when you started the business, getting people excited? Because you mentioned, you know, you need contributors. So what was one of the ways that you you sort of found these contributors? And and to your point about, you know, following the money, is it that you weren't able to find people that were contributing back Or or what ultimately led to, you know, the next steps and decisions there?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. So so initially you know, it's like when you have a young business, everything's like super fast. Right? Like you have one decision that can make or break your whole business. And, you know, we had made some, like, hard lines that we just didn't wanna cross in terms of, like, quality, for example, on the platform and the amount of NFTs we want to sell.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that definitely, you know, we pay the price for that. The contributor side you mean the contributors in the contributors in the sense of code or contributors in the sense of art? Because we needed both. Pedro, what did you mean by that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: What was that? Sorry.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I'm sorry. Did you mean, like, contributors in terms of code or contributors in terms of arts, like, artists? I mean, both.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I mean, you've you've built a market place so there is that 2 sided, you know, you need the buyers and the the community in terms of art. But in terms of code contribution as well, I mean, you're looking to build this out in public sort of. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. In terms of, like, Paul, the developers themselves, we, applied for well, I was writing in a in a in a forum, called Project Catalyst. It's like a funder fundraiser for Cardano blockchain specifically. And, there, this, well, this team showed up. They have a consultancy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>They have developers. They were interested in the story. And that kind of how we want to build a marketplace. NFTs were just starting. So nobody even, you know, talked about it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then we were kind of probably the first NFT marketplace on Cardano, given, like, the timeline of when we started, like, this whole journey. And, of course, there were other players who started, you know, kind of picking up on it. And they actually used the market much better than we did. So our our market match was not there, even initially. But we just pushed this idea, and we kind of had it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, people were asking us, hey, when are you gonna sell your coins? When are you gonna have a coin? You know, all this stake, you know, when, ICO and stuff like that. So it was like a lot of, like, hype there that we just didn't use properly. So so yeah, the devs came in.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And we had the artists who, you know, they had the same idea as us, which is a community curated marketplace, a high quality marketplace for really, really high quality artists. And we found some, of course, and they've made NFTs with us, and they sold them, but the volume was low. And so that kind of started kind of affecting us much more as we kind of turned to. And, yeah, we're here now.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So Do do you think any of that had to do with leveraging Cardano and sort of tying yourself into the Cardano ecosystem when there were other you know, there's obviously so many players, in the space. Cardano being obviously always in the in the top ten, I'd say for the most part. And as a fan, personally, I've, you know, I've invested in Cardano as well and, have followed that community for a while. I know there's a lot of ups and downs. But if you were to do it all over again, would you have chosen, perhaps a different cryptocurrency?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Or do you think there was a risk of of choosing, you know, Cardano to base everything off of?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It's dangerous to say I would choose something else in the crypto space. I'm kidding you. I would definitely no. I am kidding. I would definitely choose.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. I would definitely choose Cardano again, actually. Because it was a unique opportunity in the market. There was no NFT marketplaces. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There was already like OpenSea. There was, I don't know, super rare. You know, these things were like, we were like super rare, a bit more like super rare. I don't know if you know these NFT marketplaces, but super rare was more like, yeah, high end art rate. So, and 101 NFT is what we call like unique NFT.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, yeah, There was definitely opportunities that were, you know, there in on Cardano In the Cardano ecosystem itself. But I would definitely choose it again. Like, Yeah. I don't think that's a question of Because it scales, right? Like, that's how we went.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, if we're gonna build a business around a cryptocurrency, we have to pick something that scales. And that's gotta stay there in 10, 20 years. Ethereum, unfortunately, doesn't scale as well as we know. Right? Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right. High fees. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. You you've touched on a couple things I really wanna kinda dig a little deeper on. Number 1, startups are fast and furious, like you said, and there's a lot of decisions to be made. And so one of the things you touched on was people asking questions of when are you releasing this or when are you doing that, also making the right decisions. So how did you as the, you know, leader of the entire organization, how did you balance, making the product stable, making things that people wanted, also trying to tie in experimentation for new features?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because, obviously, the the blockchain community kind of took off so fast recently, and and so there's a lot of changes happening. So how did you find that balance of leading a team, building what people wanted, and trying to to put in new features into a product as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Good question. So so, like, at the beginning, as I said, we were like, we stuck to our goals and like we had this vision. And then we saw that that wasn't working as well as we wanted it to, so we started listening. And one of the things that, you know, we knew was missing from the Cardano ecosystem was auctions.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So an auction kind of automated and on chain auction system. So that you have a permissionless auction. Basically, you send your NFT, you send your money, and basically the the smart contract itself spews out the winner. Right? So this was never, built by anyone else.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So we knew that there was, like, this unique market opportunity and a lot of requests for that. Of course, there's tech debt, right? It's a startup, so everything is breaking all the time. You have to fix things. You have a backlog.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, you know, we had a a Trello board, I remember, for bugs only. We had, like, GitHub for developments. Like, we used, like, a bunch of different tools for different stuff. And, you know, the trail board was just like getting filled up all the time with bugs and and customer requests. So it was even small stuff, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, if you have something that should work and somehow doesn't work for one user, and you try to fix it, and you're like, okay, let me, know, I have to dig in and, you know, fix something up. I mean, that's so really great job for them doing this, for our tunnel, definitely.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: How did that transition go? You know? Because, obviously, you're in a you're in a new position now, and there's been a transition period in general. Do you find that that type of, leadership that you're currently in and development life cycle or development type of development that you're doing currently is a lot more rigid in a in a larger company, or is it a little bit more freeing because you're not you're not the ultimate decision maker, but you obviously do have people underneath of you. So is it is it less stressful but less ability to to be flexible now than where you currently or previously were?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. When I was leaving the startup role, I was like, I'm gonna chill now. I'm gonna, like, take it easy. I'm gonna, like, you know and then I went to my job, and I was like, I wanna keep this job. So I'm really stressed out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I really want to, you know, work with people and show that I'm worth it. Right? So I think I'm never gonna be happy. That's the conclusion. No, I'm kidding.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's it's basically like, it's and I think it's it's a mix of things again, like, you know, like, as a as a CEO, you really are everything to the company, you're doing everything. Everybody's looking at you for decisions. There's no other person, you know, who can make it for them, right, if it make the decision for you. So, so and now it's like, I am a contributor, but it's like, I have my own team, I have my own bubble. And whatever happens outside of it is out of my control.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I don't have to think about that. But then at the same time, I really have to think about my team and develop their skills and, improve their processes. So it's a bit it's a really different kind of work, I think. As a CEO, you're also sales, you're marketing, you're a developer, you're a team lead. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And as a team lead, I'm just a team lead. But the focus is different a bit. Right? Like and also, you have some expectations from your bosses, and it's a bit of a different dynamic. And working with people is hard.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? Like, it's just very, difficult at times, right? Because you have to put your ego behind, and you have to listen and say, hey, you're right. And, as a CEO, you don't get to do that that much because you're always right for the good or the bad of it. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And and when you're leading a team, you know, obviously, there's a lot of responsibilities that you have as a leader. But when you're talking about, like, you know, if you were to look at a a pie chart and see the percentage of your time spent across doing different things, what does that look like in terms of managing teams and just managing people? Sometimes maybe being a a babysitter, versus, like, actual or, you know, psychologist, versus actual, like, decision making and and strategy and all that. Like, what is that that split look like for you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It's a very good question because I have no clue. It's, like day to day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Any given day. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Because like, I mean, I remember like some colleagues in my previous company, they were like, oh my God, this is like a psych session. Thank you so much, you know, for listening to me. And I was like, okay, great. So, so yeah, I think there's definitely some psychology there.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, I would say, you know, 1 on ones, you know, you have them, I don't know, maybe a full day every 2 weeks. So like half, like half a day every week, You spend on just being a psychologist for people, you know, listening to their problems or finding out a way to solve some things and help them, you know, either prioritize, help them. Yeah. Like just vent out sometimes, you know, so it's important for people just, you know, you're just as a manager should not talk at all and just let people, you know, let's team out on you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Right. And that definitely sounds like some some some good advice. Sorry, John. You had a question.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Well, I was just gonna say, you know, for for quite a while, it sounds like even back, I guess, to college and as as growing up, it seems like you were always a go getter and whatnot. Have you ever thought about ever stepping down? Maybe this is even towards retirement, but stepping down just to be an individual contributor and be that person who needs psychiatric help from your boss, or do you love that type of day to day constant change in what you're doing, chaos, but also controlled chaos? You know? You know, have you ever looked at it from the other side of the spectrum even though you've been in leadership for quite a while now?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Code is like Kryptonite. Like, you just wanna get close to it and get yeah. You know, it's the as closer you get to it, the weaker you get, and the more you wanna kind of, do it. Like, you the more you wanna, I don't know, like, to contribute individually. So I had recently, like, I was pairing with some devs, and I was like, oh my god, I missed this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then I step away, and I was like, I don't think my personality is made for this, because I'm like more like active, more like change experimentation, you know, making decisions. And And some people are not like that. And when I look, you know, when I was an individual contributor, I don't think I was fully happy, because it was more like just listen and do things, right? And here's like, you know, you make your decisions, and you're responsible for those decisions, but you maybe have some skill set and some communication skills that individual contributors don't have, right? So so, I mean, not always, but let's say I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's how I feel, at least in my experience. So, yeah, I do feel like, you know, the draw towards that sometimes. But, you know, in in then I'm like, okay, I really like actually managing and, you know, leading people and talking to podcasts. I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: It's kinda like a slings it's kinda like a sling shot. You get closer or an orbit. You orbit close to what you really like, but then you kind of go outside and do your leadership type of stuff. So you're, like, constantly orbiting around a center of gravity, which is coding.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we're building software. Right? And if there's no people to build it, then it's well, your job is worthless as a manager.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Exactly. And then I guess the other side of it is, like, what to build. And you you had mentioned before, you know, kinda chasing the money. Is that something that when you're looking to make decisions based on, you know, technology and business alignment, is that where your head's at?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, what's going to, you know, what's gonna please the the customer the most or what's gonna bring in the most revenue? And then, like, how do you manage prioritizing that with the engineers? I know that sometimes engineers, developers wanna build really cool stuff. Other times, it's like, no, we need to focus on revenue. So I'd love to hear about that balance of how you make those key decisions and which direction to head.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So it depends on the company, I think, and on your role. Right? So sometimes as an engineering manager, you actually do make product decisions. Sometimes you don't. So so for me, I think it's just important to balance things out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? You have tech debt. You have something that is there's like bugs, right, in the code. There's something that is waiting for you. Always there constantly in the backlog.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you have also this new shiny thing you wanna build. So, yeah. I think the most difficult question is how do you balance building new stuff and fixing the old stuff? And that's something that I don't know. Maybe there's a book on this or something.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, I, you know, there's ways to figure it out yourself. But, I think it's hard. Right? And you have to kind of constantly look at both and say, hey, there's a pile of stuff. You know, crap is piling up on this side.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And we're not or we are not developing anything new. And we're just, like, boring and not, you know, not enjoying our work. So I think it's a balance.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Is that anything that's happened recently that you can share, like, specific example of that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Not specific examples of that. I think it's just constantly happening at any organization. Like there's no specific thing that I can point out because it's so common. Right? It's like every day you do this and every day you of have to prioritize what am I gonna do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, where am I gonna spend my money, time, life, energy on. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. And you and you've traveled quite a bit and lived in quite a few places, that we discussed in our previous conversation a little bit here. You're currently in Estonia. You've you've been in Germany. You've been in the United States.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Do you find that that type of, those types of changes and seeing different cultures and whatnot has, number 1, enhanced your leadership, enhanced your introductions to the people who have different coding skills that you then can also, inherit, and then also helped you become an inclusive manager and leader, for all types of people?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I think it's important to be an empathetic leader because you just want to people to be happy and, yeah, work with you and communicate well with you and just, like, be, you know, be there for you. I know it's cheesy, but, you know, I don't like this, like, comparison with, like, family and stuff. But, you know, at least you're comfortable with your team, and that's important. And I think you learn that through having these different experiences, living in different places.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You just learn how to communicate faster with people. Get get to know them faster and get to, like, kind of get to them faster, and then to you faster. And that's really important, I think, as a manager to be, not just a professional, right? But also be a human, and to understand that sometimes we don't like things. And being able to explain that you have to do things that you don't like to others is super important as a leader.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: So so if you're an unempathetic robot, you might not want to be a leader?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I think you wanna be a contributor. I'm kidding. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: AI is not gonna replace the leadership team then.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Who knows?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Who knows?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean, there's an empathy you can code into it. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. There you go.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. So you you've been in blockchain. You're currently doing what you're doing. Do you have hot takes on things like AI? Or or I guess because you are in a leadership position, you do have a little bit of ability to do some forward thinking, figure out where you might wanna experiment.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, what is the next wave that you see being able to take advantage of? Are you digging into AI, or is there something else? How do you feel about those types of things?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: In my piece I'm looking into the camera right now, but my piece of advice for everyone is to take notes on what happened to crypto and do the same thing that to AI. Because in crypto, we had, like, this use case for everything. Crypto is gonna solve all our problems, and now this is happening with AI. So so I think that people are having this holy grail moment with technology in general. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We had phones. We had social media. Now, crypto, AI, next thing is probably VR headsets with Apple, what Apple's doing, right? So we have these like wow moments. And these things are just gonna integrate into our lives.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think that's the whole point of technology, just making things smoother, easier. Right? And I think that with AI, I I mean, I know that it's something that will probably make things easier, but not in the ways that maybe we imagine it right now. It usually doesn't turn out the way, you know, these predictions that we, we make them. So so I think, you know, there's a holy grail in technology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yes, it's gonna help us. Yes, it's a tool. But you still can't rely on AI fully to do, you know, I don't know, doctor's exams because, yes, it can check your body and it can give you a diagnosis, but you will still need a doctor to proof proofread it or proof. So it's the tool. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's like anything else. It's a tool.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I guess there's there's, sorry. I was gonna say there there is that argument that, you know, essentially, it's it's software. It's stuff we've been doing for a long time. You know, it used to be called big data or maybe before that called something else.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And really, it's just the larger and larger you scale this data out, now you have really large language models because of the capabilities of GPU's and, just where we're at today. So yeah. You can see extrapolating that out to just be larger and larger use cases of of, you know, just running heavy computations, essentially. But, yeah, interesting to hear your take.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think that's a really smart view that you take because you were obviously so ingrained in the the cryptocurrency blockchain world. It's phones came around, and they did change our lives, but we just it's in integrated into our lives. Technology, the Internet, you know, it came around before that, and it's now integrated in into our lives. And it's really just to make our lives easier.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's I I personally don't think AI will take over the world. I don't think robots will take over the world. I think it'll make our lives easier. It'll it'll help us make do things quicker and faster. We still have to proof check it, like you said, or maybe we'll get to a point where we don't have to proof proofread it as much.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I think right now, we've we're hitting this burst. You know? Everybody's really excited. Everyone's creating something new every 5 seconds. Eventually, you know, all of the useless ones will fade away, but then AI will integrate into our normal daily lives.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so I think having the experience that you had, kind of allows you to see it from that point of view. Like, yeah, it is something that could change the way we do things, but it'll just integrate with how we already do that or how we already do things. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Do you\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: do you go to AI at all for advice on management or whatnot? Do you say, how do I be a bet how do I tell this person to get to work?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I used to do I never used it in this new role. I used to do it in my previous role a bit for some presentations, as this, yeah, as a CEO, I didn't use it because it just wasn't a thing chat gpt wasn't released yet. So, it really came as like NFTs were fading away and crypto was fading away. You know? Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I kind of came to replace it, which you can see on social media as well. I guess there's some research probably on this. I would like to read it. But, yeah. Sorry.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. Basically, a bit. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Well, if anyone would read up on AI as opposed to having AI tell you what AI is, it's something to you. Because you read a lot when you're at Oxford. So I'm sure you'll you'll read how AI actually works.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh my god. Don't get me started with that reading thing. You know, sometimes I get messages in Slack, and I'm just, like, I read the first sentence and I already kind of conclude what the whole thing is about, like the whole chunk of text, and I answer already. And I'm like, and then I go back. I like, because I used to do this, like, I would just answer it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I'm just trying to like, you know, slowly read it. And, because you don't have time, right? You just wanna do things fast. Yeah. Sorry.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The aggression.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, I guess, what kind of were there ever challenges? Because you've you've had a lot of roles. You've got a very diverse background. Were there ever challenges that you you came across where you just felt like you couldn't climb that hill and you you thought you couldn't do it and you did.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? Obviously, technology, there's a lot of challenges. And so I I guess, did you learn most of your experience from being a CEO and a leader, or are you learning I guess you're a little bit newer in your role here, but, do you think that you're gonna be able to climb those hills a little bit easier where you currently are, overcome those challenges a little easier with Bolt?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I had a role in between Bolt and and this being a CEO, also like a manager role, similar size of the team. And I think that was my kind of playground, I would say, for a lot of these mistakes. And I made a lot of mistakes there, and I can see it now. And I'm really thankful for this experience. So I think, you know, as our career progresses, we just get to learn.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We just get to make some smaller mistakes over time, right? Like, it's smaller and smaller, hopefully, until we are, you know, like an actual leader or manager or like whatever we wanna become like a software developer. It would just, you know, recognize patterns and recognize, you know because now, like, when I'm in this role, like, I'm just thinking, you know, oh, I've heard this before, you know? So you get to that kind of stage where you're like, oh, okay. I know this type of person.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I know what they're expecting, or from me as a manager, or, what they wanted from their career even. So so, yeah, it gets easier over time. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Awesome. I I think, you know, I personally appreciate people who travel and and work when they're traveling and see different cultures, see different things, learn from all of their experiences. And, again, as as both Pedro and I have our own side businesses, some that are still going and some that have succeeded and failed as well, I think there's a lot to be learned from your experience. So I guess if there's any any, you know, remaining thoughts that you have for people who might be looking to follow a similar journey, you know, if they wanna be a CEO of a company, if they wanted to get into blockchain, if they wanna be a manager as opposed to an individual contributor, you know, what are some thoughts that you would have, some advice that you would give, either to your former self or to some of those people who might be listening who have similar aspirations?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I would say that you should probably, as somebody who's, like, let's say, a contributor individually, you know, make a big leap in your career, but also be sure that it's a safe leap, that you don't throw everything out, that you just don't quit your job and without funding and, you know, find your find your own company without a team. You know, you have to kind of prepare. It's a process. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, in going from a contributor to manager or let's say to CEO, a big jump. It's just like something that you need to kind of have a cushion and make sure that you're not losing it all at the end of that journey. Right? Because a lot of people are doing that. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Especially in the US, you don't have a, I guess, a safety net. Right? So like social security, all this stuff is like a pretty, yeah, spicy topic. So so, yeah, like, you have to have a cushion, a financial cushion or funding or family support. I think that's really important.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So so then you can kind of journey forward without fear because fear is pulling us back.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Right. So the really pragmatic approach, line everything up, really think it through, and have, like, a mission oriented, yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Start with a job. Like, I was working, you know, 12 hour days plus. And, I mean, that's not even a lot. I think some people work 16 hours. You know, sometimes I wake up at AM AM.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I would end my day at 2 AM. And it's tough, but, you know, there was no for me, there was no other way to to, you know, make sure that I'm safe into going into a business.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining us. Definitely learned a lot. Really appreciate your time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Thank you, guys. I hope to see you soon.\u003C/p>","Yeah. When I was leaving the startup role, I was like, I'm gonna chill now. I'm gonna, like, take it easy. I'm gonna, like, you know and then I went to my job and I was like, I wanna keep this job, so I'm really stressed out. I really want to, you know, work with people and show that I'm worth it, right? So I think I'm never gonna be happy. That's the conclusion. No, I'm kidding. Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us for this week's podcast. With us, we have Matea. Matea, I'll let you introduce yourself so that you can give you your best introduction and representation of yourself. Why don't you let everyone know a little bit of a brief background of who you are, where you're based, where you're located, and then we can kinda get into the questions after that. Sure. Sounds good. I'm Mateo. I'm a techie. I'm an engineering manager currently at Bolt, which is a ride hailing company mostly. We do a lot of stuff like food delivery, and, yeah, grocery delivery. So, it's a pretty big company. And, yeah, about myself, I don't know. I just ate, like, I cooked dinner in 5 minutes, and I ate it in 3. So I think I broke the record for, fastest eating and cooking of a meal after work. Well, you know, real real quick inter real quick interjection. I used to work with a firefighter, and he was a record fast eater. He would eat a huge burrito in in probably 2 or 3 minutes. Oh, man. I could never I need to sit there and enjoy it, but, yeah, I get it sometimes. Yeah. Me too, usually. But if you're here. You okay? Yeah. So sorry. That's it. Yeah. I'm I'm yeah. I used to work for Artano. I mean, as as a CEO of Artano. It's an NFT platform. I guess that's the main reason why I'm here. And, yeah, I mean, generally, I am into, yeah, just, like, trendy new technologies. I was into crypto, have my own theories around that. Like, yeah, we talked about it briefly, before about, AI bros versus crypto bros. So I I think that's a topic probably we'll have to touch at some point. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm based in Estonia. Sorry. I forgot to say that. And I'm from Serbia originally. Awesome. Sounds great. And what's your what do you do at your current role at Bolt? So I'm an engineering manager. I manage a team of, 8 developers, mobile side, and, some Android, iOS, and back end. Yeah. And we are responsible for the app. So the, yeah. Yeah. I I don't think I can talk much about it yet because I'm new to the company as well. So yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Well, let's dive in a little bit into some of your previous experience. You mentioned you were a CEO. So let's go even further back from that. When did you first starting start getting into technology? Did you go to school for it? And then I guess we can circle back around eventually to to becoming a CEO, but I'd love to understand, how you got into technology. Was it from a young age, or did did Twitter get you into it? Did you see somebody say something cool? So, yeah, I'd love to learn how you first started getting interested in technology. Yeah. I think my dad is mostly to think for that. He's, somebody who introduced me to computers. He is a big Linux fan. So I was probably 4 years old when I ran my first games from Linux. He, like, forbade me to use the Windows. He was such an anti Windows guy. He was like, yeah, it's like the devil basically. And now today, you know, like, we think of these things a bit differently, but at the time it was like, you know, Linux is the best thing ever, and open source is the way to go. And, it's I guess that was the crypto of the time, right? And now we have a bit of a different, yeah, outlook on things. And that's like the first time. So I was like 4 years old, I think, when I first started, like, a kernel command. But I'm not like I don't think I'm like a project kid or anything. I just, like, learned by heart how to run a game because I want to play it. So you were smarter at 4 years old around technology than than most people are even still to this day. I don't think it's that hard to learn a command to write, like, open a kernel and write a command. But yeah. Maybe. I don't know. Do you think it's any harder or easier than learning a language? Sorry. What what running language? Do you think it's any like, learning a coding language is any harder or easier than learning a, you know, verbal or written language? It's an interesting question. So I'm somebody who likes learning languages. I speak fluently like French and German and Serbian. So and English, I guess. And I'm yeah. I think it's something that's very interesting to compare, like linguistics of a language and how linguists learn things from, you know, how how, you know, programmers or people who code, how we learn things from linguistics, between I think music as well. Music is very mathematical. But music, yeah, computer science and and linguistics are pretty interesting. And yeah. Nice. Nice. I I speak English, and that's about it. So, same with when it comes to coding languages. I only know a couple. I was not as talented as yourself. So I I believe in our previous conversation, you mentioned going potentially to Oxford. So I'd love to understand what you went to school for. And did did your time at at university kind of lead you to want to start your own company? Or, I guess, how did that transition go from going from university to eventually starting your own company? So, yeah, I went to uni in the US. I went to Middlebury College. I studied computer science and German language. I did liberal arts. So that allowed me to, like, spring into different things, right? Like, to to touch on different topics and mostly writing. I really liked writing, research. And yeah, so I went to Oxford for a kind of an independent study, independent research thing, in my 3rd year of college. And I was lucky enough to, you know, see this, how this world works. You know, you have a tutor, you have a 1 on 1 with a professor at Oxford, which is pretty incredible. And that's how they do things. It's like very 1 on 1 based, very like research based. You have a lot of readings. I don't think I've ever read that many books in my life. It was like stacks of books, on just like random medieval history topics because I just, I don't know, enjoyed it at the time. And I don't know, like that helped me, I think, in analytical thinking. Right? Like you have always, some kind of learning from these things that are unrelated to computer science to technology. Right? So I think you can always learn from history, not as a like a history repeats itself sort of way, but as in like analytical thinking, how people were, you know, to put yourself in a mind of somebody 200 years ago or 300 years ago, and then write about it because what we perceive, I think in technology as well, what we perceive for, from the user perspective or as a developer is much different than the user, right? So, user is someone who is actually gonna use your software, and you're somebody who writes the code. So sometimes these 2 don't click. And that's when a lot of businesses fail, actually. I believe at least. So, yeah. Go ahead, John. Yeah. I was just I was just curious because, you know, Pedro and I both have started our own businesses for different purposes. Mine was not technology based. Pedro's was a little bit. So I'm curious, again, what what led you to start your own business, and then, what were some of the lessons that you learned in running a business? Because, obviously, you're in a different position now, which we can we can kind of transition into later in the conversation. But, what were some of the lessons that you learned starting a business and then running a business? Oh, I think the biggest lesson is, to not follow your gut instinct and follow the money, however awful and capitalistic that sounds. You know, I had this dream of a marketplace that was, you know, open and curated by the community and very, yeah, like, just, open to to, let's say, new markets to especially African market, Asia and South America. That's where we focused our kind of initial, let's say, first wave of of, sales. And, like, yeah, you just learned that sometimes what you dream of building and the the ideals that you have as a person don't necessarily reflect on your business, on the numbers. Right? So yes they reflected on the people we got. Like we got amazing artists who had the same vision, the same goals as us. We got an amazing you know team but it just didn't translate to business every time. So we learned over time, of course, to to follow this, like, smell of money, I guess. But, yeah, that didn't work out as as we expected. Maybe we'll talk about it as well a bit. But, yeah. So that's it. Yeah. How did you go about, like, when you started the business, getting people excited? Because you mentioned, you know, you need contributors. So what was one of the ways that you you sort of found these contributors? And and to your point about, you know, following the money, is it that you weren't able to find people that were contributing back Or or what ultimately led to, you know, the next steps and decisions there? Yeah. So so initially you know, it's like when you have a young business, everything's like super fast. Right? Like you have one decision that can make or break your whole business. And, you know, we had made some, like, hard lines that we just didn't wanna cross in terms of, like, quality, for example, on the platform and the amount of NFTs we want to sell. So that definitely, you know, we pay the price for that. The contributor side you mean the contributors in the contributors in the sense of code or contributors in the sense of art? Because we needed both. Pedro, what did you mean by that? What was that? Sorry. I'm sorry. Did you mean, like, contributors in terms of code or contributors in terms of arts, like, artists? I mean, both. I mean, you've you've built a market place so there is that 2 sided, you know, you need the buyers and the the community in terms of art. But in terms of code contribution as well, I mean, you're looking to build this out in public sort of. So Yeah. In terms of, like, Paul, the developers themselves, we, applied for well, I was writing in a in a in a forum, called Project Catalyst. It's like a funder fundraiser for Cardano blockchain specifically. And, there, this, well, this team showed up. They have a consultancy. They have developers. They were interested in the story. And that kind of how we want to build a marketplace. NFTs were just starting. So nobody even, you know, talked about it. And then we were kind of probably the first NFT marketplace on Cardano, given, like, the timeline of when we started, like, this whole journey. And, of course, there were other players who started, you know, kind of picking up on it. And they actually used the market much better than we did. So our our market match was not there, even initially. But we just pushed this idea, and we kind of had it. You know, people were asking us, hey, when are you gonna sell your coins? When are you gonna have a coin? You know, all this stake, you know, when, ICO and stuff like that. So it was like a lot of, like, hype there that we just didn't use properly. So so yeah, the devs came in. And we had the artists who, you know, they had the same idea as us, which is a community curated marketplace, a high quality marketplace for really, really high quality artists. And we found some, of course, and they've made NFTs with us, and they sold them, but the volume was low. And so that kind of started kind of affecting us much more as we kind of turned to. And, yeah, we're here now. So Do do you think any of that had to do with leveraging Cardano and sort of tying yourself into the Cardano ecosystem when there were other you know, there's obviously so many players, in the space. Cardano being obviously always in the in the top ten, I'd say for the most part. And as a fan, personally, I've, you know, I've invested in Cardano as well and, have followed that community for a while. I know there's a lot of ups and downs. But if you were to do it all over again, would you have chosen, perhaps a different cryptocurrency? Or do you think there was a risk of of choosing, you know, Cardano to base everything off of? It's dangerous to say I would choose something else in the crypto space. I'm kidding you. I would definitely no. I am kidding. I would definitely choose. Yeah. I would definitely choose Cardano again, actually. Because it was a unique opportunity in the market. There was no NFT marketplaces. Right? There was already like OpenSea. There was, I don't know, super rare. You know, these things were like, we were like super rare, a bit more like super rare. I don't know if you know these NFT marketplaces, but super rare was more like, yeah, high end art rate. So, and 101 NFT is what we call like unique NFT. So, yeah, There was definitely opportunities that were, you know, there in on Cardano In the Cardano ecosystem itself. But I would definitely choose it again. Like, Yeah. I don't think that's a question of Because it scales, right? Like, that's how we went. Like, if we're gonna build a business around a cryptocurrency, we have to pick something that scales. And that's gotta stay there in 10, 20 years. Ethereum, unfortunately, doesn't scale as well as we know. Right? Right. Right. High fees. Yeah. Yeah. You you've touched on a couple things I really wanna kinda dig a little deeper on. Number 1, startups are fast and furious, like you said, and there's a lot of decisions to be made. And so one of the things you touched on was people asking questions of when are you releasing this or when are you doing that, also making the right decisions. So how did you as the, you know, leader of the entire organization, how did you balance, making the product stable, making things that people wanted, also trying to tie in experimentation for new features? Because, obviously, the the blockchain community kind of took off so fast recently, and and so there's a lot of changes happening. So how did you find that balance of leading a team, building what people wanted, and trying to to put in new features into a product as well? Yeah. Good question. So so, like, at the beginning, as I said, we were like, we stuck to our goals and like we had this vision. And then we saw that that wasn't working as well as we wanted it to, so we started listening. And one of the things that, you know, we knew was missing from the Cardano ecosystem was auctions. So an auction kind of automated and on chain auction system. So that you have a permissionless auction. Basically, you send your NFT, you send your money, and basically the the smart contract itself spews out the winner. Right? So this was never, built by anyone else. So we knew that there was, like, this unique market opportunity and a lot of requests for that. Of course, there's tech debt, right? It's a startup, so everything is breaking all the time. You have to fix things. You have a backlog. Like, you know, we had a a Trello board, I remember, for bugs only. We had, like, GitHub for developments. Like, we used, like, a bunch of different tools for different stuff. And, you know, the trail board was just like getting filled up all the time with bugs and and customer requests. So it was even small stuff, right? Like, if you have something that should work and somehow doesn't work for one user, and you try to fix it, and you're like, okay, let me, know, I have to dig in and, you know, fix something up. I mean, that's so really great job for them doing this, for our tunnel, definitely. How did that transition go? You know? Because, obviously, you're in a you're in a new position now, and there's been a transition period in general. Do you find that that type of, leadership that you're currently in and development life cycle or development type of development that you're doing currently is a lot more rigid in a in a larger company, or is it a little bit more freeing because you're not you're not the ultimate decision maker, but you obviously do have people underneath of you. So is it is it less stressful but less ability to to be flexible now than where you currently or previously were? Yeah. When I was leaving the startup role, I was like, I'm gonna chill now. I'm gonna, like, take it easy. I'm gonna, like, you know and then I went to my job, and I was like, I wanna keep this job. So I'm really stressed out. I really want to, you know, work with people and show that I'm worth it. Right? So I think I'm never gonna be happy. That's the conclusion. No, I'm kidding. It's it's basically like, it's and I think it's it's a mix of things again, like, you know, like, as a as a CEO, you really are everything to the company, you're doing everything. Everybody's looking at you for decisions. There's no other person, you know, who can make it for them, right, if it make the decision for you. So, so and now it's like, I am a contributor, but it's like, I have my own team, I have my own bubble. And whatever happens outside of it is out of my control. So I don't have to think about that. But then at the same time, I really have to think about my team and develop their skills and, improve their processes. So it's a bit it's a really different kind of work, I think. As a CEO, you're also sales, you're marketing, you're a developer, you're a team lead. Right? And as a team lead, I'm just a team lead. But the focus is different a bit. Right? Like and also, you have some expectations from your bosses, and it's a bit of a different dynamic. And working with people is hard. Right? Like, it's just very, difficult at times, right? Because you have to put your ego behind, and you have to listen and say, hey, you're right. And, as a CEO, you don't get to do that that much because you're always right for the good or the bad of it. Right? So yeah. Yeah. And and when you're leading a team, you know, obviously, there's a lot of responsibilities that you have as a leader. But when you're talking about, like, you know, if you were to look at a a pie chart and see the percentage of your time spent across doing different things, what does that look like in terms of managing teams and just managing people? Sometimes maybe being a a babysitter, versus, like, actual or, you know, psychologist, versus actual, like, decision making and and strategy and all that. Like, what is that that split look like for you? It's a very good question because I have no clue. It's, like day to day. Any given day. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, I mean, I remember like some colleagues in my previous company, they were like, oh my God, this is like a psych session. Thank you so much, you know, for listening to me. And I was like, okay, great. So, so yeah, I think there's definitely some psychology there. Like, I would say, you know, 1 on ones, you know, you have them, I don't know, maybe a full day every 2 weeks. So like half, like half a day every week, You spend on just being a psychologist for people, you know, listening to their problems or finding out a way to solve some things and help them, you know, either prioritize, help them. Yeah. Like just vent out sometimes, you know, so it's important for people just, you know, you're just as a manager should not talk at all and just let people, you know, let's team out on you. Right. And that definitely sounds like some some some good advice. Sorry, John. You had a question. Well, I was just gonna say, you know, for for quite a while, it sounds like even back, I guess, to college and as as growing up, it seems like you were always a go getter and whatnot. Have you ever thought about ever stepping down? Maybe this is even towards retirement, but stepping down just to be an individual contributor and be that person who needs psychiatric help from your boss, or do you love that type of day to day constant change in what you're doing, chaos, but also controlled chaos? You know? You know, have you ever looked at it from the other side of the spectrum even though you've been in leadership for quite a while now? Code is like Kryptonite. Like, you just wanna get close to it and get yeah. You know, it's the as closer you get to it, the weaker you get, and the more you wanna kind of, do it. Like, you the more you wanna, I don't know, like, to contribute individually. So I had recently, like, I was pairing with some devs, and I was like, oh my god, I missed this. And then I step away, and I was like, I don't think my personality is made for this, because I'm like more like active, more like change experimentation, you know, making decisions. And And some people are not like that. And when I look, you know, when I was an individual contributor, I don't think I was fully happy, because it was more like just listen and do things, right? And here's like, you know, you make your decisions, and you're responsible for those decisions, but you maybe have some skill set and some communication skills that individual contributors don't have, right? So so, I mean, not always, but let's say I don't know. That's how I feel, at least in my experience. So, yeah, I do feel like, you know, the draw towards that sometimes. But, you know, in in then I'm like, okay, I really like actually managing and, you know, leading people and talking to podcasts. I don't know. It's kinda like a slings it's kinda like a sling shot. You get closer or an orbit. You orbit close to what you really like, but then you kind of go outside and do your leadership type of stuff. So you're, like, constantly orbiting around a center of gravity, which is coding. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we're building software. Right? And if there's no people to build it, then it's well, your job is worthless as a manager. So Yeah. Exactly. And then I guess the other side of it is, like, what to build. And you you had mentioned before, you know, kinda chasing the money. Is that something that when you're looking to make decisions based on, you know, technology and business alignment, is that where your head's at? Like, what's going to, you know, what's gonna please the the customer the most or what's gonna bring in the most revenue? And then, like, how do you manage prioritizing that with the engineers? I know that sometimes engineers, developers wanna build really cool stuff. Other times, it's like, no, we need to focus on revenue. So I'd love to hear about that balance of how you make those key decisions and which direction to head. So it depends on the company, I think, and on your role. Right? So sometimes as an engineering manager, you actually do make product decisions. Sometimes you don't. So so for me, I think it's just important to balance things out. Right? You have tech debt. You have something that is there's like bugs, right, in the code. There's something that is waiting for you. Always there constantly in the backlog. And then you have also this new shiny thing you wanna build. So, yeah. I think the most difficult question is how do you balance building new stuff and fixing the old stuff? And that's something that I don't know. Maybe there's a book on this or something. But, I, you know, there's ways to figure it out yourself. But, I think it's hard. Right? And you have to kind of constantly look at both and say, hey, there's a pile of stuff. You know, crap is piling up on this side. And we're not or we are not developing anything new. And we're just, like, boring and not, you know, not enjoying our work. So I think it's a balance. Is that anything that's happened recently that you can share, like, specific example of that? Not specific examples of that. I think it's just constantly happening at any organization. Like there's no specific thing that I can point out because it's so common. Right? It's like every day you do this and every day you of have to prioritize what am I gonna do. You know, where am I gonna spend my money, time, life, energy on. Right? Yeah. And you and you've traveled quite a bit and lived in quite a few places, that we discussed in our previous conversation a little bit here. You're currently in Estonia. You've you've been in Germany. You've been in the United States. Do you find that that type of, those types of changes and seeing different cultures and whatnot has, number 1, enhanced your leadership, enhanced your introductions to the people who have different coding skills that you then can also, inherit, and then also helped you become an inclusive manager and leader, for all types of people? Yeah. I think it's important to be an empathetic leader because you just want to people to be happy and, yeah, work with you and communicate well with you and just, like, be, you know, be there for you. I know it's cheesy, but, you know, I don't like this, like, comparison with, like, family and stuff. But, you know, at least you're comfortable with your team, and that's important. And I think you learn that through having these different experiences, living in different places. You just learn how to communicate faster with people. Get get to know them faster and get to, like, kind of get to them faster, and then to you faster. And that's really important, I think, as a manager to be, not just a professional, right? But also be a human, and to understand that sometimes we don't like things. And being able to explain that you have to do things that you don't like to others is super important as a leader. So yeah. So so if you're an unempathetic robot, you might not want to be a leader? I think you wanna be a contributor. I'm kidding. Yeah. AI is not gonna replace the leadership team then. Who knows? Who knows? I mean, there's an empathy you can code into it. Right? Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So you you've been in blockchain. You're currently doing what you're doing. Do you have hot takes on things like AI? Or or I guess because you are in a leadership position, you do have a little bit of ability to do some forward thinking, figure out where you might wanna experiment. You know, what is the next wave that you see being able to take advantage of? Are you digging into AI, or is there something else? How do you feel about those types of things? In my piece I'm looking into the camera right now, but my piece of advice for everyone is to take notes on what happened to crypto and do the same thing that to AI. Because in crypto, we had, like, this use case for everything. Crypto is gonna solve all our problems, and now this is happening with AI. So so I think that people are having this holy grail moment with technology in general. Right? We had phones. We had social media. Now, crypto, AI, next thing is probably VR headsets with Apple, what Apple's doing, right? So we have these like wow moments. And these things are just gonna integrate into our lives. And I think that's the whole point of technology, just making things smoother, easier. Right? And I think that with AI, I I mean, I know that it's something that will probably make things easier, but not in the ways that maybe we imagine it right now. It usually doesn't turn out the way, you know, these predictions that we, we make them. So so I think, you know, there's a holy grail in technology. Yes, it's gonna help us. Yes, it's a tool. But you still can't rely on AI fully to do, you know, I don't know, doctor's exams because, yes, it can check your body and it can give you a diagnosis, but you will still need a doctor to proof proofread it or proof. So it's the tool. Right? It's like anything else. It's a tool. Yeah. I guess there's there's, sorry. I was gonna say there there is that argument that, you know, essentially, it's it's software. It's stuff we've been doing for a long time. You know, it used to be called big data or maybe before that called something else. And really, it's just the larger and larger you scale this data out, now you have really large language models because of the capabilities of GPU's and, just where we're at today. So yeah. You can see extrapolating that out to just be larger and larger use cases of of, you know, just running heavy computations, essentially. But, yeah, interesting to hear your take. Yeah. And I think that's a really smart view that you take because you were obviously so ingrained in the the cryptocurrency blockchain world. It's phones came around, and they did change our lives, but we just it's in integrated into our lives. Technology, the Internet, you know, it came around before that, and it's now integrated in into our lives. And it's really just to make our lives easier. It's I I personally don't think AI will take over the world. I don't think robots will take over the world. I think it'll make our lives easier. It'll it'll help us make do things quicker and faster. We still have to proof check it, like you said, or maybe we'll get to a point where we don't have to proof proofread it as much. But I think right now, we've we're hitting this burst. You know? Everybody's really excited. Everyone's creating something new every 5 seconds. Eventually, you know, all of the useless ones will fade away, but then AI will integrate into our normal daily lives. And so I think having the experience that you had, kind of allows you to see it from that point of view. Like, yeah, it is something that could change the way we do things, but it'll just integrate with how we already do that or how we already do things. So Yeah. Do you do you go to AI at all for advice on management or whatnot? Do you say, how do I be a bet how do I tell this person to get to work? I used to do I never used it in this new role. I used to do it in my previous role a bit for some presentations, as this, yeah, as a CEO, I didn't use it because it just wasn't a thing chat gpt wasn't released yet. So, it really came as like NFTs were fading away and crypto was fading away. You know? Yeah. I kind of came to replace it, which you can see on social media as well. I guess there's some research probably on this. I would like to read it. But, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Basically, a bit. Yeah. Well, if anyone would read up on AI as opposed to having AI tell you what AI is, it's something to you. Because you read a lot when you're at Oxford. So I'm sure you'll you'll read how AI actually works. Oh my god. Don't get me started with that reading thing. You know, sometimes I get messages in Slack, and I'm just, like, I read the first sentence and I already kind of conclude what the whole thing is about, like the whole chunk of text, and I answer already. And I'm like, and then I go back. I like, because I used to do this, like, I would just answer it. And I'm just trying to like, you know, slowly read it. And, because you don't have time, right? You just wanna do things fast. Yeah. Sorry. The aggression. Yeah. Again, I guess, what kind of were there ever challenges? Because you've you've had a lot of roles. You've got a very diverse background. Were there ever challenges that you you came across where you just felt like you couldn't climb that hill and you you thought you couldn't do it and you did. You know? Obviously, technology, there's a lot of challenges. And so I I guess, did you learn most of your experience from being a CEO and a leader, or are you learning I guess you're a little bit newer in your role here, but, do you think that you're gonna be able to climb those hills a little bit easier where you currently are, overcome those challenges a little easier with Bolt? I had a role in between Bolt and and this being a CEO, also like a manager role, similar size of the team. And I think that was my kind of playground, I would say, for a lot of these mistakes. And I made a lot of mistakes there, and I can see it now. And I'm really thankful for this experience. So I think, you know, as our career progresses, we just get to learn. We just get to make some smaller mistakes over time, right? Like, it's smaller and smaller, hopefully, until we are, you know, like an actual leader or manager or like whatever we wanna become like a software developer. It would just, you know, recognize patterns and recognize, you know because now, like, when I'm in this role, like, I'm just thinking, you know, oh, I've heard this before, you know? So you get to that kind of stage where you're like, oh, okay. I know this type of person. I know what they're expecting, or from me as a manager, or, what they wanted from their career even. So so, yeah, it gets easier over time. Yeah. Awesome. I I think, you know, I personally appreciate people who travel and and work when they're traveling and see different cultures, see different things, learn from all of their experiences. And, again, as as both Pedro and I have our own side businesses, some that are still going and some that have succeeded and failed as well, I think there's a lot to be learned from your experience. So I guess if there's any any, you know, remaining thoughts that you have for people who might be looking to follow a similar journey, you know, if they wanna be a CEO of a company, if they wanted to get into blockchain, if they wanna be a manager as opposed to an individual contributor, you know, what are some thoughts that you would have, some advice that you would give, either to your former self or to some of those people who might be listening who have similar aspirations? Yeah. I would say that you should probably, as somebody who's, like, let's say, a contributor individually, you know, make a big leap in your career, but also be sure that it's a safe leap, that you don't throw everything out, that you just don't quit your job and without funding and, you know, find your find your own company without a team. You know, you have to kind of prepare. It's a process. Right? Like, in going from a contributor to manager or let's say to CEO, a big jump. It's just like something that you need to kind of have a cushion and make sure that you're not losing it all at the end of that journey. Right? Because a lot of people are doing that. Right? Especially in the US, you don't have a, I guess, a safety net. Right? So like social security, all this stuff is like a pretty, yeah, spicy topic. So so, yeah, like, you have to have a cushion, a financial cushion or funding or family support. I think that's really important. So so then you can kind of journey forward without fear because fear is pulling us back. Right. So the really pragmatic approach, line everything up, really think it through, and have, like, a mission oriented, yeah. Start with a job. Like, I was working, you know, 12 hour days plus. And, I mean, that's not even a lot. I think some people work 16 hours. You know, sometimes I wake up at AM AM. I would end my day at 2 AM. And it's tough, but, you know, there was no for me, there was no other way to to, you know, make sure that I'm safe into going into a business. Thanks so much for joining us. Definitely learned a lot. Really appreciate your time. Thank you, guys. I hope to see you soon.",[221,222,223],"23cdeb72-cd9f-4a0e-913f-0629cf083f37","54371530-ea30-4635-bbeb-248d946e017c","44da0951-5d55-43d5-860e-5bdf1f2d133a",[],{"id":144,"number":145,"show":122,"year":146,"episodes":226},[148,149,150,151,152],{"id":151,"slug":228,"vimeo_id":229,"description":230,"tile":231,"length":232,"resources":8,"people":233,"episode_number":239,"published":240,"title":241,"video_transcript_html":242,"video_transcript_text":243,"content":8,"seo":8,"status":130,"episode_people":244,"recommendations":248,"season":249},"ali-payne","896619497","Ali shares his relentless passion for technology and his commitment to staying abreast of current trends and developments. Tracing his journey from Ohio to the tech hubs of the West, Ali discusses how he perceives every technological challenge as a puzzle waiting to be solved.","82aad3bf-6a5b-44da-8c1b-1f98c5f8efba",37,[234,235,236],{"name":162,"url":163},{"name":165,"url":166},{"name":237,"url":238},"Ali Payne","https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-payne/",4,"2024-02-08","Ali Payne, Lead Engineer at Stitch Fix","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Someone is working constantly just in a different time zone. But it would be nice if you could just go in there and pair program with them with the VR headset, just sitting back on your couch air typing. I mean, if they don't automate our job before that. But hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Pedro, and we got Jonathan here and Ollie. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks, where we interview some thought leadership and engineers on their experience, and hopefully learn something along the way. So, yeah. Ollie, I'd I'd like to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself and maybe a quick, you know, minute, 60 second background, and we'll dive right in.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Quick background. I'm a lead engineer currently at, Stitch Fix. I've done everything from front end, back end, data engineering, CTO, startups, big companies, contracting. And, hey. I enjoy what I do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What more can I say?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah. John John, I'm gonna go ahead and take Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: And I I'd love to understand, I guess, since you love what you do, we we have these conversations, and everyone seems to love a different, a different reason why they do what they do, but we can just start there. You know, what what, you know, what got you into engineering, and and why you love it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Funny enough, I got into engineering through recruiting. My very first job, I I my first year is in psychology. I was always interested in people, and I worked for a recruiting firm that actually built their own proprietary software. And from there, I kinda found out that you could build anything, and you could put it online and anyone could see it. So that's kinda what got me, started and interested.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Prior to that, I didn't really have any any idea, to be honest with you. To answer the question, like, what gets me interested is I I look at technical problems or just problems in general as solving a puzzle. And being in technology, you get to solve puzzles in the comfort of your own home.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Or in a hotel room. Either either where wherever you are.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Hey. Remote is remote in today's world.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. For sure. 1st, for some of those early engineering projects and, like, as you started to get into into engineering, was there any overlap between psychology and engineering that you sort of took advantage of or explored in those early days as you made that transition?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I will say one thing that psychology majoring psychology or even taking psychology serious, just human interaction in general, I think has been the one differentiating factor for me in an engineering career. Like, no matter where I've gone and I I did my fair job shop or job hopping. I'm not gonna lie. But no matter where I got, I was enough of a communicator to be able to galvanize the troops. Or, you know, like, make the friends you needed to make, find out who is the who, and then just get the conversations going about, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Can we get the troops going to do something fun? Or, like, can we, like, gear our engineers against the project managers in some regard? Not for, like, a negative, but just to be like, you know, there's some smart people that just don't say anything just because, you know, the, you know, we're engineers. We're we're here to not talk.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That must be a different experience because our engineers love to talk. They love to tell jokes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, I mean, once you get them going, they won't shut up. But, you know, the initial you know, like, I I one of the best people I ever worked with. He had to train himself, to look people in the eye. And, you know, just from the aspect spectrum of just how people think, it's not too infrequent that you get someone who's not like the the stellar communicator, but is a wiz problem solver.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Was was this person someone who is like a mentor to you, or was it someone you just worked with?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It was my favorite mentor, my number one mentor, Doug himself. And, I'll say that one of the the best lessons I learned from him, at least mentoring others, is sometimes the best direction in leadership is none at all. To see where you land and just help.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Just get out of the way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Get out of the way, let you fail, and then come around and be like, hey. Do you need help? I gotcha.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Is that a style of leadership that you you like where you would prefer it? You know, obviously, there's times where you would want a little bit more interaction with leadership, your leadership. But as you've climbed the ranks and gone from place to place, is that something that you react more openly to, a leader who kind of lets you do your thing? Or would you prefer or is it a case by case scenario where some projects you need a little bit more hands on? And then I guess as you're starting to be a lead engineer yourself or as you're in this role now, for people who kind of look up to you in a leadership role or as your as their mentor, do you lead them the same way as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I'll say my leadership style is just a little it's a little different, because I also did, like, coaching. I played sports a while, a long time. And and I like to one of the biggest lessons I learned in any leadership is, like, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And oftentimes for them to find that out, they have to put themselves in a bad position. And in engineering, nothing better than a deadline, missing a deadline, or telling some project manager that you completely understood the scope.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then once that happens, you can guide people into your loving support and care as a leader and then groom them. And once they can see you as that type of caring individual, not to say that it's a a facade or anything. It's it's a genuine care. It's just that that's kinda how I've learned to lead in a more of a passive passive way. I mean, everyone likes if you can do the work, you know, but if you can make an excuse for someone to make them look like a hero, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's real leadership.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's awesome.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And you're probably one of the first people we've talked to who's been who who has mentioned sports in the background. You know? I played sports when I was a kid. We have someone on our team who actually was a former NFL player.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We find that those types of people, they understand, number 1, how to be a team player. They know hard work because you can't play sports without working hard or you're not gonna play it long. But you also they also seem to understand when to step up and when to step up into a leadership role, whether it's temporarily or permanently as a captain or something like that. So I guess is that something that you think came from your sports background, or is that something that you think you had before sports? It helped you enjoy sports a little bit more, and it's just transitioned into the current place that you're at now.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, I'll say this. When I was a kid, I was uncoachable. I was that uncoachable guy where he's like, why is he on the bench, man? He's so good. Uncoachable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? Just knew everything. So, you know, as you age, you mature, and I got to do this a little bit more than I got to do sports, I feel. And I've just come to that conclusion, you know, that that, like, some of I don't know who quotes it, but some people say, like, you don't hire smart people to tell them what to do. You hire smart people to figure out your problems.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And most of the people I've worked with, I I've been on, like, excellent teams or all of them have been smarter than me. I might just be able to articulate a little bit better their idea or their concept. But when you don't want the credit and you just want the team to win, like, that's how you build things. And it's just an interesting perspective from you know, you go to engineering. Most people that have been engineers their whole life, you know, it's kind of a set like, a solo pursuit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? You you you find them with the computer. Like, I'm on the computer all day. I don't get to talk to people. But then, like, if you can reach out and it's like, no.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Let's do a community. Like, one of the best team building things I ever did, was at a startup at Zipseam, and we went and saw Deadpool together. And it's like I yeah. I still got memories from that. You know what I mean?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it's just, I don't know. Everything's about team building at the end of the day. And it's and and all the problems that we all have, all the industries are all the same. It's all communication. Anything solvable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's just can we communicate with each other, and can we make each other feel all wanted and put each other in the right positions.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. If you were to if you were to rank like the things you do as a leader, for your team, like, do you think those team bonding experiences, those team outings are the things that really foster that, sense of community and and, and creativity within the team that'll then allow you to work better together on on certain projects. Like, how does that you know, how would you stack that up against some of the other things that we've been talking about?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, one of my favorite teams I ever went on, we all came from a different background. Every single one of us was from a different background. But we went out to eat every day. Like, not every day because, you know, you can't eat out every day, but, you know, we ate out a lot, and we spent a lot of time together. And the project we might have been working on varied.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It was contracting various data things. But what brought us together was just coming together and bonding kinda like how a family has dinner today. Well, you know, you'd want to have dinner every night, you know, groom your children for whatever, but it's it it seems like it's just time spent together. And one of, like, the industry issues, at least since I've jumped around, I've been part of the issue, is is really interesting is it's like a lot of these legacy systems, a lot of these long built building things are just they couldn't keep their original engineers there, so we're all resolving the same problems. You know, but that that's just life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I just think it's just anything about time spent together. Like, it seems like you guys got a pretty good bond together. Had there been time spent together in the trenches. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That brings up a good question because Pedro and I have have we've been around the block together. We've been in 3 places together. Matt is now part of our trio. We've we've inherited him, one of our marketing guys.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But how do you find that that's how do you find to do that in the remote world that we're in? Because Pedro's in LA. I'm in Nashville. Some other coworkers are in New York or DC. And when we're in when we're in person, there is that it it feels like no time has passed, and we're on calls all the time together or we'll message each other all all the time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, you know, we're we're we're sales guys by heart. You know, we have some other skills as well. But how do you find that that works with engineers who are typically in their in their houses and like to be remote and stay quiet a lot of times? How do you build that camaraderie or that team in a remote world?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, some of it, like I mean, we had a, I think it was this Christmas. We had, like, a, you know, a Christmas day. Just online playing games, you know, bingo, bang, playing games, just talking together or just like our daily meetings. Right now, I'm on a team where we have Colorado. We have Austin.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We have Michigan. I'm in Ohio or Nevada. And then we got, you know, San Francisco. And it and it's, like, interesting things that happen, like, not to be negative, but, like, the Amber alert. That go off for 1 of us, then it goes off for all of us, or, like, the weather or even, like, you know, local events that are happening, and you can just kinda engage yourself with other people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it allows you to be, I would say, like, a more well versed person just, like, nationally. And then it it kind of buys into, like, hey. You know? No. I got my friend in I got my friend in Texas, man.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, what this is what's going on on the ground. And I think that's the way to kind of build it. And it and it's like, you you have to think, my little brother, like, during the COVID, had to go remote school. You know? I mean, he's 1st grade, just typing on a computer all day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, like, I I hate to tell people, well, this is just the world that we're probably gonna live in. Yep. So we might as well take advantage of it. And truth is if you look at, like, the statistics or the studies behind remote working, which a a lot of executives probably won't bring up, but you'll work more remote than you will actually in the office. Like, I'll find myself here late at night.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Just gotta get it done. Gotta get it done. And you turn your office or your house into your own you know, you're working around the clock. So it's a catch 22. It's an interesting conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I see you just build build teams by being together. You know, being a person, being normal.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely feel that. I I actually have to in my office, I have my lights programmed to change color at, a certain time so that I make sure to, like, hit the gym. And, of course, sometimes I'll ignore it, but it's just, like, at least having that mental marker, like, well, I was supposed to stop working about 30 minutes ago because I gotta start working again in a couple hours and take a call with, somebody in Malaysia or something.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, yeah, I like what you're saying about, like, these these team outings, especially about the gaming thing. Like, I know a lot of friends who connect with their coworkers, through gaming, through playing games together online and stuff. And like you said, it's it is the world we live in, and I guess that's the the bet that companies like, you know, Meta are taking that maybe this is it's trying to bring that in person experience into the online world with, like, VR and stuff. And I don't know. Like, do what what's your perspective on on that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Do you think that VR and these kind of future technologies can can accomplish that same goal of, like, going to all see Deadpool together, you know, but, like, in a headset or, like, the Apple with the Vision Pro coming out, that sort of thing?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So interestingly enough, I, like, I wasn't sold on it at first. Right? Even though I had, like, one of those VR boys back in the day where I'd play tennis on it and everything. I was never sold Tango 1? Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It was like a Yeah. Virtual Boy, I think.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Virtual Boy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: But I so I was never sold on it. But then so I'm out here in Vegas, and I went to see, King Tut, a virtual 3 d, thing down at, I think, Mandolin Bay. And you put the goggles on it, and it's the Oculus, and you're exploring Egypt. Just walking around, just playing with things. And then, like, my friend had one of those PlayStation VRs, and you could cook and you could do the the everything in it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it's like I've seen some of the things where you could actually set up your office 3 d in a manner. And, like, I could have my 9 monitors or how we're monitors, and I could be in a virtual workplace together with people. So for for in that regard, like, kinda like NFTs or even cryptocurrencies. It's the utility of it, not the actual concept of it, I think. And I think more and more people will because there's there's just things like because we're so remote, like, we're in different time zones.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, we even have contractors in the Philippines. So we're like, someone is working constantly just in a different time zone. But it would be nice if you could just go in there and pair program with them with the VR headset, just sitting back on your couch, air typing. I mean, if they don't automate our job before that but hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: You know? I I love the the VR aspect of that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. No. I I like what you're saying about the utility of it. Right? Like, the technology, the hardware, the software, that's all clearly going to get there to a point where it's like, you know, that you can't tell the difference between that and real life essentially, but it's it's the utility in the application, like, what are the companies going to build, to actually be able to do in there and and actually make you feel more together, in a not so cartoonish way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Like, even us just using faces with our with the podcast. I mean, I feel more connected to you than if it's not. And a lot of policies that we're putting in place at Stitch Fix is you have to turn on your camera. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, I wanna see your facial expressions because I wanna know if this is a terrible idea.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You know? Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Or maybe you shouldn't know. But, yeah, I think there's I think I think there's some things where it makes sense. You know? Like, maybe watching a movie with a friend who's across the country or across the globe. But you're in Vegas.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I don't think I ever wanna miss the feeling of the the the slots hitting or playing craps. I don't think I could do that virtually. Yeah, I think there's some things that would be easily moved into the a fake world or a a VR world. There's some things that I feel like just should never never be replaced. So I'm kinda curious to see where that goes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I I used to work for Apple, and the VisionPRO certainly interests me, but I don't know. It's starting to get creepy how real stuff looks. But but, yeah, you mentioned your 9 monitors. Like, if you if you could have your entire room just full of monitors, you're. But then again, we're already I think all 3 of us are over workers.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So do I wanna have a computer monitor up while I'm washing the dishes? I don't I don't know. What about you? Do you think it'll cause even more overworking potentially? Or I think we're all over workers anyway, so it doesn't matter for us 3.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We're already past the point of saving. Yeah. What about for others?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean, I don't think you can you can just make it convenient. You know? Like, the one thing that I wanted to do, like, maybe 2 years ago, I was gonna get, my cousin one of those headsets because you could both sit, like, front row at an NBA game and talk to each other like we were next to each other. You know what I mean? But, like, if you could all create a virtual environment workplace that's ideal and you could mix it with your home.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know what I mean? Like, you could, in a sense, maximize someone's output and make them to be comfortable. And not maybe because that's probably the best idea, but more about because, like, you know how, like, with with life or with future, it always leans one way and leans the other way. And, like, I see, like, what I went through as the job hopping phase, And I feel like companies are just gonna be tripling down on, like, longevity of employment again because we went so far left. We need to go right and readjust.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And a lot of our issues could just be solved. We just didn't have to keep getting people over and over again.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Do you see that as a problem now that you're climbing into leadership that that VR could solve? You know, you I think it is easy to job hop when you don't feel that connection with your coworkers or with your leaders. But if somebody if you're wearing a VR headset and somebody comes and whispers in your ear, you know, you turn around and there's a person virtually there, do you think that could solve that that kind of ease of job hopping when you just don't feel like you you anybody would miss you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I don't know what the right way to put it, but I do feel like there's a just a disconnect with feeling a part of your business if you don't inter interact with other people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I I I will say this. I don't know how VR VR might help. You know what I mean? Just because you would be around people, and I think that always is a is a positive. But with, with job hop, at least if I could give any advice while we're on here, and if anyone is listening to this, I've been in a pleasurable situation where I've been on a team where it's like, hey, you're groomed for for executive leadership.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? Like, we know that you're gonna get there. We're putting you on a team. Everyone's gonna be moved up. I've also contract in positions where I I I was working to groom a certain individual who was going to move up the corporate ladder.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, they had already picked them out to be a CEO, and they just didn't know. I I and and it's like it bewilders you because you asked them, like, does he know or does she know? They're like, no. We haven't told him. I was like, don't you think?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And they'll they'll end up leaving, and you'll be like, oh, man. You guys lost a a CEO you were grooming. Like, that's kinda big. You know? Like, I mean, but since you didn't tell them, I guess, no one knows no loss.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I think that the the thing that could just is just timing. You know? Like, I think a lot of people need to be more transparent about, like, hey, what they want out of their career and where they wanna be. And then, like, also companies should be like, hey. We see you as a leader.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, one of the one of the greatest losses I ever saw. Like well, I mean, I did it too, and I was the same person, so I understood why they left. But I was like, man, looking back, you probably shouldn't have left. But it's just something that you learn. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, you learn with time, and I just think the industry's gonna change just because it's been this way for so long that just the yin and yang effect of anything. Just the universal law is like, if everyone's leaving, then there has to be a period of time of us. We might not get Rolexes again, but, I mean, they're gonna want us to stay around.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: We can try and get Rolexes. But yeah. So so what do you what do you think? You mentioned one really good point that somebody else has mentioned in one of these podcast recordings too, letting letting leadership know your intentions of wanting to climb the corporate ladder. So what would be some good advice that you give having, you know, done these types of things yourself as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But for those engineers who would be listening or those who want to get into engineering and would eventually want to climb as well, What's some good advice that you would give, you know, people who are wanting to climb the the corporate ladder or the the leadership ladder?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, one one thing I would always tell anyone is variety is this is spice of life is variety, however you wanna put it. So experiencing everything is key. Right? Like, if you don't know what you've tasted, then you don't know what you want. So early in your career, like, for example, I did front end.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I did back end. I did data engineering. I tried to start my own company. I did a little sales. I was in recruiting for a while.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, I did, the drawing. I did the UX for a while. It's like knowing and and then once you know how to do everything, not to say you should know, but once you have that that skill, like, you can kinda tail you you 1, you can see where it all leads to, but more importantly, you can find out what it is that you like. So I think once you find out what you like, like, for example, I was a data engineer, and I'd go to data visualization, like, front end meetings. And, like, my managers would say, hey, Ali.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Why are you in this meeting? And I'd be like, well, I'm working on a side project doing data visualization. Anyway, I figured what's what's the harm of it. And if I know how the 2 need to to speak, then that's a win win. So just going out of your going out of your way, I mean, if you're young enough and you don't have a family or anything or any obligations, and we're still in the office, showing up early is always a good thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>One of the tricks that someone told me, and it was my sales career, was always work a Saturday. You know? Come in and work a Saturday because if you work a Saturday, you know, a, you pick up everything. You might be able to relax a little bit during the week, but no one can get rid of the guy who works on Saturdays. And everyone remembers the call on Saturday.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>For for moving's perspective, we just got a so Citrix, we got, Tony, Tony and Matt, but Tony's been, just because he just spoke recently. He's talked about how he transitioned from coding to executive leadership. And, really, it was it was more about just aligning yourself with a business or understanding, especially if you're an engineer. Like, when you're young, you think like, hey. I gotta solve this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This is the most important thing in the world. You know, like, no one else can solve this. I'm gonna do this in such a creative way. You know how you you think, like, you're this god complex that comes from solving a few engineering things. But then when you you advance a little bit, you you can kinda take a step back and look at the whole picture, and it's like, it's not it's about the business.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because if the business doesn't succeed, you don't have your engineering job. So how can you improve the business? Is there something you could do to improve our business, our organization? Could you open source something? Could you, like, have a conversation with an outside company like yours, you know, that's doing some very interesting things in the industry to put our name out there?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Just just other ways you can add value because if you're gonna separate yourself, it's gonna be like, the power of 3, like, your your your personality, your work ethic, and then that extracurricular killer stuff that you're doing on the side that also presents that. Oh. How?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So what about people like myself who work Saturday Sunday? You're saying no one can ever get rid of me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, I mean, you just love it, man, and we're lucky enough to find something we love.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. So you're really\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: mad about that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: True.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That is that is so true. I think John and I both have, you know, sort of nights and weekends projects as well. So, as as do, I think, most engineers. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, most engineers we talk to have nights and weekends project. We did another interview with someone who had done some DJ work and, and did, like, karaoke stuff. So, it's it's really cool to see you know, you do get to express some of the creativity that you can't put towards work that doesn't have a fit there. You could still express in another way, right, through music, through art, through, you know, coding on a personal project. Do you have anything like that that you exercise those skills with?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, right well, I mean, I shouldn't say it. Right now, I like to trade stocks a lot, because I see it as, like, a nonsolvable problem. You know? Because it's all math, but it's just based upon time series and where you're at and, like, if the patterns recreate. One of the best engineers I ever worked with, he was a an he made swords.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So he's a fire. A fire maker. So I\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: was like, so what do you how\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I was like, did you did you get that signed by Randy Jackson?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: What a what a hobby.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. But it's like, you you know, you meet people who are like to take her. You'll find out all types of interesting, hobbies. So it's definitely something to to identify for or to ask like, hey. Are you working on these side projects?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, that's back in the day. That's how I'd identify a winner.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: It's funny you mentioned that because my my brother-in-law, who also is in technology, he's been in it longer than me. He used to make iron lamps, so lamps with pipes, and then there was a lamp at the top out of it. But that's how he met Steven Tyler, and he met a bunch of random people because he worked on this random side project. So it's kinda cool that somebody you knew made swords.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I met somebody that somebody that I was in a band with started creating some art and then started creating, like, tapestries, these really complex tapestries. And all of a sudden, he gets a call from, like, Kanye's team to, like, design some, like, lion chain necklace. And all of a sudden, he's, like, the biggest thing in the in the rap and hip hop world because he's just like the go to artist for that kind of stuff, designing all these huge, you know, 10 foot tall tapestries for these guys' homes and stuff. So yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's pretty cool.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: 2 notes on 2 notes on that. 1, like, from my other big career after this, I realized that musicians, given the right background, they're always great salesman because they're always great communicators. They always have a great network. And it's like they can take you in the fun environment, the professional. So that's always one thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then 2, just for anyone like, hey. Just do whatever you like to do. You know? Like, I mean, this guy got paid to make tapestries. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Imagine you get paid to do something you love to do. You know? You should always pursue that. And, eventually, you know, you pursue it long enough, it'll be a niche.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I think we need to keep track, Pedro, of how many times music gets brought up on these conversations because music gets brought up. People who love to play music. I think it's a No. Engine it's an engineering trait. People just love to play different things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. It's also it's also just math. I mean, music is is art, in a way, but it's it's mostly just math and chords and melody, and, it all just comes down to numbers. So I think the engineering mind does really well with that. I mean, we've got a number of musicians.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We say it all the time. We've got a number of musicians here at, at Directus, and we've got I mean, I just this morning, I was on a call with with a prospect who is had a bunch of guitars in the background, so it's always cool to see.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Matt was giving away the secret on LinkedIn about stop at time just replaying the same song. And Yeah. I I will say I once worked with, I once worked with, I don't even know what it's called, but, like, a PhD in music. And they also were a a coder, and it was just like, to them, it made so much sense, like, the the synchrony between the 2.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But to me, I just was like, I like listening to opera while I code.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. We, we're coming out with a just a series of videos with lo fi music because I I love listening to Oh, I love that. Jazz or music just on the side while I'm working. I think that's a very common thing. Opera is good.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>A symphony. You can't beat a good symphony. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: No. Something with pain. Something just with, like, like, or classical. I've been listening to lofi Tupac. Not gonna lie.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Lofi Tupac. Where can I find that? YouTube. Awesome. I saw I saw they did, I don't know if you've seen on YouTube.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's a series where a guy takes, Super Mario 64 sounds and recreates entire albums. So he took, like, one of the Radiohead albums and used recreated the whole album with just the sound bank of Super Mario 64. And he's done it with a number of classic albums like Nirvana, and, it's it's pretty pretty interesting. Sweet. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How random. People have a lot of time on their hands. But yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: No. You brought up, like, old video games. I remember my very first startup. It, like, was my internship, and I used to play Zelda. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because I was always into video games. I played Zelda for, like, 12 years just to beat it. I remember, like, how hard it was. 1st day 1st week. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We, speed play Zelda. Like, the record was, like, 22 minutes. I said, golly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. There's so many side quests. You have to do all the side quests.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I don't know how they beat it that quick, but it's just funny to say, like, at least I I don't know how long we have, but, like, hey. If you're not into tech, you should still get into tech because everything is tech. And that's how I benefited so much, and that's why psychology was so beneficial for me, as I've explored my direct career. Mhmm. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That that's awesome. As we start to wrap up, I'd love to under I'd love to learn about real briefly, you know, what are what are your goals? And do you see yourself you talked about grooming a CEO or someone who is going to be that. You know? What what are your end goals?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Where would you like to see yourself, you know, climbing more into leadership, getting more into an individual contributor role, both? You know, I guess, what are what are your goals?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: My goals really, lately has been just, like like, trying to find people who are like me, younger, you know, and just give them everything that I've picked up along the along the journey just to make a lot of people's journey shorter. And I've come to realize, like, so I've had a privilege of working at Stitch Fix and also 8451, which was big on, like, women led organizations or, like, women involvement and, you know, like, you know, team involvement. It's just a diversity of a team in general. And it's like there's several problems in tech. I mean, like, we've we've proven, I think, that anything's solvable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The the problem now is like, hey. Do we have the, like, let's say, the dynamic the the demographics to create all problems? Because once we create the problems, then we can create solutions. So it's just more of for me right now, I'm just trying to I'm I'm most interested in getting more people into tech, that look and don't look like me. Just just so, you know, like, well, for 1, I don't know what else they're gonna do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But for for for 2, you know, like, it's not as hard as you would think. You know? Like, it it's not. It's really just solving puzzles. It's just we make it difficult because we like to be elitist.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That's really good point.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Does it require 9 computer monitors to be as good as you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean Or 12.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Some of these Just like you gonna be better.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Just like in monopoly, man. Like, it's all about real estate, man. And the more screen real estate you got, the better.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. So it sound I\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: after you. My bad. My bad.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I I was gonna say it sounds like you need the VisionPRO from Apple coming out because in your whole you're everywhere you look, you can have screens.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You just loop around in a chair and see screens all over you. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Or you're you're in Vegas. Just go to the sphere and put all your monitors on the sphere.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. The the the, ironically enough, the one jealous, the the the most jealous I've ever been as a developer. We had a, we had a guy who you could tell he had it. You know? Like, you can just see it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, you can just see it. But he only worked on one one screen, and I had to pair a program with him. And it was just like, man, how do you do this? But he had the advantage because it's like, sometimes I will not be able to work if I don't have a bunch of monitors, but he could work anywhere at any time. So just go camping on this monitor, and it's like so it's like there's it's like everything, man.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's wind and there's plus and losses about the whole monitor con conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, awesome. I think I think it came across in this conversation, your real passion for engineering, and that's why you've gotten into it, but also your passion for people. So for for people who are listening, you know, how can they follow you? Where can they get in contact with you if they wanna get in contact with you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Is it LinkedIn or other things as well? Let let people know\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: where you're at. I usually just use LinkedIn to be quite honest with you. I have a YouTube, but I don't really do anything on it. It's just more for me to play around with. I've been playing with the algorithm on both of them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But it would just be LinkedIn. Just, I think it's just Ollie Payne. LinkedIn slash Ollie hyphen Payne, a l I hyphen p a y n e. But, you know, I'm focusing on those 2, man. I'm not gonna venture out too much.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have little time we have little time for extra even projects, but so it's interesting that you even do algorithms. But, I think I can I think I can speak for Pedro? This has been a fantastic conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I feel like every conversation we have for this podcast is almost completely different, and yours was more so around kind of compassion for people and compassion for engineering. So I think we we both greatly appreciate the time, and we'll put your contact info in the the description, but definitely think that people can find some some good tidbits from what you've said today. So definitely appreciate the time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Hey. I appreciate talking to both of you, and, hey, they have a good product too.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Well, hey. You guys have good clothes. So if people need clothes, check out Stitch Fix.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Hey. Win win. Love the plugs. Appreciate it.\u003C/p>","Someone is working constantly just in a different time zone. But it would be nice if you could just go in there and pair program with them with the VR headset, just sitting back on your couch air typing. I mean, if they don't automate our job before that. But hey. Hey, I'm Pedro, and we got Jonathan here and Ollie. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks, where we interview some thought leadership and engineers on their experience, and hopefully learn something along the way. So, yeah. Ollie, I'd I'd like to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself and maybe a quick, you know, minute, 60 second background, and we'll dive right in. Quick background. I'm a lead engineer currently at, Stitch Fix. I've done everything from front end, back end, data engineering, CTO, startups, big companies, contracting. And, hey. I enjoy what I do. What more can I say? That's awesome. Yeah. John John, I'm gonna go ahead and take Yeah. And I I'd love to understand, I guess, since you love what you do, we we have these conversations, and everyone seems to love a different, a different reason why they do what they do, but we can just start there. You know, what what, you know, what got you into engineering, and and why you love it? Funny enough, I got into engineering through recruiting. My very first job, I I my first year is in psychology. I was always interested in people, and I worked for a recruiting firm that actually built their own proprietary software. And from there, I kinda found out that you could build anything, and you could put it online and anyone could see it. So that's kinda what got me, started and interested. Prior to that, I didn't really have any any idea, to be honest with you. To answer the question, like, what gets me interested is I I look at technical problems or just problems in general as solving a puzzle. And being in technology, you get to solve puzzles in the comfort of your own home. Or in a hotel room. Either either where wherever you are. Hey. Remote is remote in today's world. Yeah. For sure. 1st, for some of those early engineering projects and, like, as you started to get into into engineering, was there any overlap between psychology and engineering that you sort of took advantage of or explored in those early days as you made that transition? I will say one thing that psychology majoring psychology or even taking psychology serious, just human interaction in general, I think has been the one differentiating factor for me in an engineering career. Like, no matter where I've gone and I I did my fair job shop or job hopping. I'm not gonna lie. But no matter where I got, I was enough of a communicator to be able to galvanize the troops. Or, you know, like, make the friends you needed to make, find out who is the who, and then just get the conversations going about, hey. Can we get the troops going to do something fun? Or, like, can we, like, gear our engineers against the project managers in some regard? Not for, like, a negative, but just to be like, you know, there's some smart people that just don't say anything just because, you know, the, you know, we're engineers. We're we're here to not talk. That must be a different experience because our engineers love to talk. They love to tell jokes. Well, I mean, once you get them going, they won't shut up. But, you know, the initial you know, like, I I one of the best people I ever worked with. He had to train himself, to look people in the eye. And, you know, just from the aspect spectrum of just how people think, it's not too infrequent that you get someone who's not like the the stellar communicator, but is a wiz problem solver. Yeah. Was was this person someone who is like a mentor to you, or was it someone you just worked with? It was my favorite mentor, my number one mentor, Doug himself. And, I'll say that one of the the best lessons I learned from him, at least mentoring others, is sometimes the best direction in leadership is none at all. To see where you land and just help. Just get out of the way. Get out of the way, let you fail, and then come around and be like, hey. Do you need help? I gotcha. Is that a style of leadership that you you like where you would prefer it? You know, obviously, there's times where you would want a little bit more interaction with leadership, your leadership. But as you've climbed the ranks and gone from place to place, is that something that you react more openly to, a leader who kind of lets you do your thing? Or would you prefer or is it a case by case scenario where some projects you need a little bit more hands on? And then I guess as you're starting to be a lead engineer yourself or as you're in this role now, for people who kind of look up to you in a leadership role or as your as their mentor, do you lead them the same way as well? I'll say my leadership style is just a little it's a little different, because I also did, like, coaching. I played sports a while, a long time. And and I like to one of the biggest lessons I learned in any leadership is, like, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And oftentimes for them to find that out, they have to put themselves in a bad position. And in engineering, nothing better than a deadline, missing a deadline, or telling some project manager that you completely understood the scope. And then once that happens, you can guide people into your loving support and care as a leader and then groom them. And once they can see you as that type of caring individual, not to say that it's a a facade or anything. It's it's a genuine care. It's just that that's kinda how I've learned to lead in a more of a passive passive way. I mean, everyone likes if you can do the work, you know, but if you can make an excuse for someone to make them look like a hero, hey. That's real leadership. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And you're probably one of the first people we've talked to who's been who who has mentioned sports in the background. You know? I played sports when I was a kid. We have someone on our team who actually was a former NFL player. We find that those types of people, they understand, number 1, how to be a team player. They know hard work because you can't play sports without working hard or you're not gonna play it long. But you also they also seem to understand when to step up and when to step up into a leadership role, whether it's temporarily or permanently as a captain or something like that. So I guess is that something that you think came from your sports background, or is that something that you think you had before sports? It helped you enjoy sports a little bit more, and it's just transitioned into the current place that you're at now. Well, I'll say this. When I was a kid, I was uncoachable. I was that uncoachable guy where he's like, why is he on the bench, man? He's so good. Uncoachable. You know? Just knew everything. So, you know, as you age, you mature, and I got to do this a little bit more than I got to do sports, I feel. And I've just come to that conclusion, you know, that that, like, some of I don't know who quotes it, but some people say, like, you don't hire smart people to tell them what to do. You hire smart people to figure out your problems. And most of the people I've worked with, I I've been on, like, excellent teams or all of them have been smarter than me. I might just be able to articulate a little bit better their idea or their concept. But when you don't want the credit and you just want the team to win, like, that's how you build things. And it's just an interesting perspective from you know, you go to engineering. Most people that have been engineers their whole life, you know, it's kind of a set like, a solo pursuit. You know? You you you find them with the computer. Like, I'm on the computer all day. I don't get to talk to people. But then, like, if you can reach out and it's like, no. Let's do a community. Like, one of the best team building things I ever did, was at a startup at Zipseam, and we went and saw Deadpool together. And it's like I yeah. I still got memories from that. You know what I mean? And it's just, I don't know. Everything's about team building at the end of the day. And it's and and all the problems that we all have, all the industries are all the same. It's all communication. Anything solvable. It's just can we communicate with each other, and can we make each other feel all wanted and put each other in the right positions. Yeah. If you were to if you were to rank like the things you do as a leader, for your team, like, do you think those team bonding experiences, those team outings are the things that really foster that, sense of community and and, and creativity within the team that'll then allow you to work better together on on certain projects. Like, how does that you know, how would you stack that up against some of the other things that we've been talking about? Well, one of my favorite teams I ever went on, we all came from a different background. Every single one of us was from a different background. But we went out to eat every day. Like, not every day because, you know, you can't eat out every day, but, you know, we ate out a lot, and we spent a lot of time together. And the project we might have been working on varied. It was contracting various data things. But what brought us together was just coming together and bonding kinda like how a family has dinner today. Well, you know, you'd want to have dinner every night, you know, groom your children for whatever, but it's it it seems like it's just time spent together. And one of, like, the industry issues, at least since I've jumped around, I've been part of the issue, is is really interesting is it's like a lot of these legacy systems, a lot of these long built building things are just they couldn't keep their original engineers there, so we're all resolving the same problems. You know, but that that's just life. So I just think it's just anything about time spent together. Like, it seems like you guys got a pretty good bond together. Had there been time spent together in the trenches. Yeah. Yeah. That brings up a good question because Pedro and I have have we've been around the block together. We've been in 3 places together. Matt is now part of our trio. We've we've inherited him, one of our marketing guys. But how do you find that that's how do you find to do that in the remote world that we're in? Because Pedro's in LA. I'm in Nashville. Some other coworkers are in New York or DC. And when we're in when we're in person, there is that it it feels like no time has passed, and we're on calls all the time together or we'll message each other all all the time. But, you know, we're we're we're sales guys by heart. You know, we have some other skills as well. But how do you find that that works with engineers who are typically in their in their houses and like to be remote and stay quiet a lot of times? How do you build that camaraderie or that team in a remote world? Well, some of it, like I mean, we had a, I think it was this Christmas. We had, like, a, you know, a Christmas day. Just online playing games, you know, bingo, bang, playing games, just talking together or just like our daily meetings. Right now, I'm on a team where we have Colorado. We have Austin. We have Michigan. I'm in Ohio or Nevada. And then we got, you know, San Francisco. And it and it's, like, interesting things that happen, like, not to be negative, but, like, the Amber alert. That go off for 1 of us, then it goes off for all of us, or, like, the weather or even, like, you know, local events that are happening, and you can just kinda engage yourself with other people. And it allows you to be, I would say, like, a more well versed person just, like, nationally. And then it it kind of buys into, like, hey. You know? No. I got my friend in I got my friend in Texas, man. Like, what this is what's going on on the ground. And I think that's the way to kind of build it. And it and it's like, you you have to think, my little brother, like, during the COVID, had to go remote school. You know? I mean, he's 1st grade, just typing on a computer all day. And, like, I I hate to tell people, well, this is just the world that we're probably gonna live in. Yep. So we might as well take advantage of it. And truth is if you look at, like, the statistics or the studies behind remote working, which a a lot of executives probably won't bring up, but you'll work more remote than you will actually in the office. Like, I'll find myself here late at night. Just gotta get it done. Gotta get it done. And you turn your office or your house into your own you know, you're working around the clock. So it's a catch 22. It's an interesting conversation. But I see you just build build teams by being together. You know, being a person, being normal. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely feel that. I I actually have to in my office, I have my lights programmed to change color at, a certain time so that I make sure to, like, hit the gym. And, of course, sometimes I'll ignore it, but it's just, like, at least having that mental marker, like, well, I was supposed to stop working about 30 minutes ago because I gotta start working again in a couple hours and take a call with, somebody in Malaysia or something. But, yeah, I like what you're saying about, like, these these team outings, especially about the gaming thing. Like, I know a lot of friends who connect with their coworkers, through gaming, through playing games together online and stuff. And like you said, it's it is the world we live in, and I guess that's the the bet that companies like, you know, Meta are taking that maybe this is it's trying to bring that in person experience into the online world with, like, VR and stuff. And I don't know. Like, do what what's your perspective on on that? Do you think that VR and these kind of future technologies can can accomplish that same goal of, like, going to all see Deadpool together, you know, but, like, in a headset or, like, the Apple with the Vision Pro coming out, that sort of thing? So interestingly enough, I, like, I wasn't sold on it at first. Right? Even though I had, like, one of those VR boys back in the day where I'd play tennis on it and everything. I was never sold Tango 1? Yeah. It was like a Yeah. Virtual Boy, I think. Yeah. Virtual Boy. But I so I was never sold on it. But then so I'm out here in Vegas, and I went to see, King Tut, a virtual 3 d, thing down at, I think, Mandolin Bay. And you put the goggles on it, and it's the Oculus, and you're exploring Egypt. Just walking around, just playing with things. And then, like, my friend had one of those PlayStation VRs, and you could cook and you could do the the everything in it. And it's like I've seen some of the things where you could actually set up your office 3 d in a manner. And, like, I could have my 9 monitors or how we're monitors, and I could be in a virtual workplace together with people. So for for in that regard, like, kinda like NFTs or even cryptocurrencies. It's the utility of it, not the actual concept of it, I think. And I think more and more people will because there's there's just things like because we're so remote, like, we're in different time zones. Like, we even have contractors in the Philippines. So we're like, someone is working constantly just in a different time zone. But it would be nice if you could just go in there and pair program with them with the VR headset, just sitting back on your couch, air typing. I mean, if they don't automate our job before that but hey. Right. You know? I I love the the VR aspect of that. Yeah. No. I I like what you're saying about the utility of it. Right? Like, the technology, the hardware, the software, that's all clearly going to get there to a point where it's like, you know, that you can't tell the difference between that and real life essentially, but it's it's the utility in the application, like, what are the companies going to build, to actually be able to do in there and and actually make you feel more together, in a not so cartoonish way. Right? Yeah. Like, even us just using faces with our with the podcast. I mean, I feel more connected to you than if it's not. And a lot of policies that we're putting in place at Stitch Fix is you have to turn on your camera. You know? Like, I wanna see your facial expressions because I wanna know if this is a terrible idea. You know? Right. Or maybe you shouldn't know. But, yeah, I think there's I think I think there's some things where it makes sense. You know? Like, maybe watching a movie with a friend who's across the country or across the globe. But you're in Vegas. I don't think I ever wanna miss the feeling of the the the slots hitting or playing craps. I don't think I could do that virtually. Yeah, I think there's some things that would be easily moved into the a fake world or a a VR world. There's some things that I feel like just should never never be replaced. So I'm kinda curious to see where that goes. I I used to work for Apple, and the VisionPRO certainly interests me, but I don't know. It's starting to get creepy how real stuff looks. But but, yeah, you mentioned your 9 monitors. Like, if you if you could have your entire room just full of monitors, you're. But then again, we're already I think all 3 of us are over workers. So do I wanna have a computer monitor up while I'm washing the dishes? I don't I don't know. What about you? Do you think it'll cause even more overworking potentially? Or I think we're all over workers anyway, so it doesn't matter for us 3. We're already past the point of saving. Yeah. What about for others? I mean, I don't think you can you can just make it convenient. You know? Like, the one thing that I wanted to do, like, maybe 2 years ago, I was gonna get, my cousin one of those headsets because you could both sit, like, front row at an NBA game and talk to each other like we were next to each other. You know what I mean? But, like, if you could all create a virtual environment workplace that's ideal and you could mix it with your home. You know what I mean? Like, you could, in a sense, maximize someone's output and make them to be comfortable. And not maybe because that's probably the best idea, but more about because, like, you know how, like, with with life or with future, it always leans one way and leans the other way. And, like, I see, like, what I went through as the job hopping phase, And I feel like companies are just gonna be tripling down on, like, longevity of employment again because we went so far left. We need to go right and readjust. And a lot of our issues could just be solved. We just didn't have to keep getting people over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. Do you see that as a problem now that you're climbing into leadership that that VR could solve? You know, you I think it is easy to job hop when you don't feel that connection with your coworkers or with your leaders. But if somebody if you're wearing a VR headset and somebody comes and whispers in your ear, you know, you turn around and there's a person virtually there, do you think that could solve that that kind of ease of job hopping when you just don't feel like you you anybody would miss you? I don't know what the right way to put it, but I do feel like there's a just a disconnect with feeling a part of your business if you don't inter interact with other people. I I I will say this. I don't know how VR VR might help. You know what I mean? Just because you would be around people, and I think that always is a is a positive. But with, with job hop, at least if I could give any advice while we're on here, and if anyone is listening to this, I've been in a pleasurable situation where I've been on a team where it's like, hey, you're groomed for for executive leadership. Right? Like, we know that you're gonna get there. We're putting you on a team. Everyone's gonna be moved up. I've also contract in positions where I I I was working to groom a certain individual who was going to move up the corporate ladder. Like, they had already picked them out to be a CEO, and they just didn't know. I I and and it's like it bewilders you because you asked them, like, does he know or does she know? They're like, no. We haven't told him. I was like, don't you think? And they'll they'll end up leaving, and you'll be like, oh, man. You guys lost a a CEO you were grooming. Like, that's kinda big. You know? Like, I mean, but since you didn't tell them, I guess, no one knows no loss. But I think that the the thing that could just is just timing. You know? Like, I think a lot of people need to be more transparent about, like, hey, what they want out of their career and where they wanna be. And then, like, also companies should be like, hey. We see you as a leader. Like, one of the one of the greatest losses I ever saw. Like well, I mean, I did it too, and I was the same person, so I understood why they left. But I was like, man, looking back, you probably shouldn't have left. But it's just something that you learn. You know? I mean, you learn with time, and I just think the industry's gonna change just because it's been this way for so long that just the yin and yang effect of anything. Just the universal law is like, if everyone's leaving, then there has to be a period of time of us. We might not get Rolexes again, but, I mean, they're gonna want us to stay around. We can try and get Rolexes. But yeah. So so what do you what do you think? You mentioned one really good point that somebody else has mentioned in one of these podcast recordings too, letting letting leadership know your intentions of wanting to climb the corporate ladder. So what would be some good advice that you give having, you know, done these types of things yourself as well? But for those engineers who would be listening or those who want to get into engineering and would eventually want to climb as well, What's some good advice that you would give, you know, people who are wanting to climb the the corporate ladder or the the leadership ladder? Well, one one thing I would always tell anyone is variety is this is spice of life is variety, however you wanna put it. So experiencing everything is key. Right? Like, if you don't know what you've tasted, then you don't know what you want. So early in your career, like, for example, I did front end. I did back end. I did data engineering. I tried to start my own company. I did a little sales. I was in recruiting for a while. Like, I did, the drawing. I did the UX for a while. It's like knowing and and then once you know how to do everything, not to say you should know, but once you have that that skill, like, you can kinda tail you you 1, you can see where it all leads to, but more importantly, you can find out what it is that you like. So I think once you find out what you like, like, for example, I was a data engineer, and I'd go to data visualization, like, front end meetings. And, like, my managers would say, hey, Ali. Why are you in this meeting? And I'd be like, well, I'm working on a side project doing data visualization. Anyway, I figured what's what's the harm of it. And if I know how the 2 need to to speak, then that's a win win. So just going out of your going out of your way, I mean, if you're young enough and you don't have a family or anything or any obligations, and we're still in the office, showing up early is always a good thing. One of the tricks that someone told me, and it was my sales career, was always work a Saturday. You know? Come in and work a Saturday because if you work a Saturday, you know, a, you pick up everything. You might be able to relax a little bit during the week, but no one can get rid of the guy who works on Saturdays. And everyone remembers the call on Saturday. For for moving's perspective, we just got a so Citrix, we got, Tony, Tony and Matt, but Tony's been, just because he just spoke recently. He's talked about how he transitioned from coding to executive leadership. And, really, it was it was more about just aligning yourself with a business or understanding, especially if you're an engineer. Like, when you're young, you think like, hey. I gotta solve this. This is the most important thing in the world. You know, like, no one else can solve this. I'm gonna do this in such a creative way. You know how you you think, like, you're this god complex that comes from solving a few engineering things. But then when you you advance a little bit, you you can kinda take a step back and look at the whole picture, and it's like, it's not it's about the business. Because if the business doesn't succeed, you don't have your engineering job. So how can you improve the business? Is there something you could do to improve our business, our organization? Could you open source something? Could you, like, have a conversation with an outside company like yours, you know, that's doing some very interesting things in the industry to put our name out there? Just just other ways you can add value because if you're gonna separate yourself, it's gonna be like, the power of 3, like, your your your personality, your work ethic, and then that extracurricular killer stuff that you're doing on the side that also presents that. Oh. How? So what about people like myself who work Saturday Sunday? You're saying no one can ever get rid of me. Well, I mean, you just love it, man, and we're lucky enough to find something we love. Yeah. So you're really mad about that. True. Yeah. That is that is so true. I think John and I both have, you know, sort of nights and weekends projects as well. So, as as do, I think, most engineers. Right? Like, most engineers we talk to have nights and weekends project. We did another interview with someone who had done some DJ work and, and did, like, karaoke stuff. So, it's it's really cool to see you know, you do get to express some of the creativity that you can't put towards work that doesn't have a fit there. You could still express in another way, right, through music, through art, through, you know, coding on a personal project. Do you have anything like that that you exercise those skills with? Well, right well, I mean, I shouldn't say it. Right now, I like to trade stocks a lot, because I see it as, like, a nonsolvable problem. You know? Because it's all math, but it's just based upon time series and where you're at and, like, if the patterns recreate. One of the best engineers I ever worked with, he was a an he made swords. So he's a fire. A fire maker. So I was like, so what do you how I was like, did you did you get that signed by Randy Jackson? What a what a hobby. Yeah. But it's like, you you know, you meet people who are like to take her. You'll find out all types of interesting, hobbies. So it's definitely something to to identify for or to ask like, hey. Are you working on these side projects? Like, that's back in the day. That's how I'd identify a winner. It's funny you mentioned that because my my brother-in-law, who also is in technology, he's been in it longer than me. He used to make iron lamps, so lamps with pipes, and then there was a lamp at the top out of it. But that's how he met Steven Tyler, and he met a bunch of random people because he worked on this random side project. So it's kinda cool that somebody you knew made swords. Yeah. I met somebody that somebody that I was in a band with started creating some art and then started creating, like, tapestries, these really complex tapestries. And all of a sudden, he gets a call from, like, Kanye's team to, like, design some, like, lion chain necklace. And all of a sudden, he's, like, the biggest thing in the in the rap and hip hop world because he's just like the go to artist for that kind of stuff, designing all these huge, you know, 10 foot tall tapestries for these guys' homes and stuff. So yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's pretty cool. 2 notes on 2 notes on that. 1, like, from my other big career after this, I realized that musicians, given the right background, they're always great salesman because they're always great communicators. They always have a great network. And it's like they can take you in the fun environment, the professional. So that's always one thing. And then 2, just for anyone like, hey. Just do whatever you like to do. You know? Like, I mean, this guy got paid to make tapestries. You know? Imagine you get paid to do something you love to do. You know? You should always pursue that. And, eventually, you know, you pursue it long enough, it'll be a niche. I think we need to keep track, Pedro, of how many times music gets brought up on these conversations because music gets brought up. People who love to play music. I think it's a No. Engine it's an engineering trait. People just love to play different things. So Yeah. It's also it's also just math. I mean, music is is art, in a way, but it's it's mostly just math and chords and melody, and, it all just comes down to numbers. So I think the engineering mind does really well with that. I mean, we've got a number of musicians. We say it all the time. We've got a number of musicians here at, at Directus, and we've got I mean, I just this morning, I was on a call with with a prospect who is had a bunch of guitars in the background, so it's always cool to see. Yeah. Matt was giving away the secret on LinkedIn about stop at time just replaying the same song. And Yeah. I I will say I once worked with, I once worked with, I don't even know what it's called, but, like, a PhD in music. And they also were a a coder, and it was just like, to them, it made so much sense, like, the the synchrony between the 2. But to me, I just was like, I like listening to opera while I code. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We, we're coming out with a just a series of videos with lo fi music because I I love listening to Oh, I love that. Jazz or music just on the side while I'm working. I think that's a very common thing. Opera is good. A symphony. You can't beat a good symphony. So No. Something with pain. Something just with, like, like, or classical. I've been listening to lofi Tupac. Not gonna lie. Lofi Tupac. Where can I find that? YouTube. Awesome. I saw I saw they did, I don't know if you've seen on YouTube. There's a series where a guy takes, Super Mario 64 sounds and recreates entire albums. So he took, like, one of the Radiohead albums and used recreated the whole album with just the sound bank of Super Mario 64. And he's done it with a number of classic albums like Nirvana, and, it's it's pretty pretty interesting. Sweet. Yeah. How random. People have a lot of time on their hands. But yeah. No. You brought up, like, old video games. I remember my very first startup. It, like, was my internship, and I used to play Zelda. Right? Because I was always into video games. I played Zelda for, like, 12 years just to beat it. I remember, like, how hard it was. 1st day 1st week. Yeah. We, speed play Zelda. Like, the record was, like, 22 minutes. I said, golly. Yeah. There's so many side quests. You have to do all the side quests. I don't know how they beat it that quick, but it's just funny to say, like, at least I I don't know how long we have, but, like, hey. If you're not into tech, you should still get into tech because everything is tech. And that's how I benefited so much, and that's why psychology was so beneficial for me, as I've explored my direct career. Mhmm. Yeah. That that's awesome. As we start to wrap up, I'd love to under I'd love to learn about real briefly, you know, what are what are your goals? And do you see yourself you talked about grooming a CEO or someone who is going to be that. You know? What what are your end goals? Where would you like to see yourself, you know, climbing more into leadership, getting more into an individual contributor role, both? You know, I guess, what are what are your goals? My goals really, lately has been just, like like, trying to find people who are like me, younger, you know, and just give them everything that I've picked up along the along the journey just to make a lot of people's journey shorter. And I've come to realize, like, so I've had a privilege of working at Stitch Fix and also 8451, which was big on, like, women led organizations or, like, women involvement and, you know, like, you know, team involvement. It's just a diversity of a team in general. And it's like there's several problems in tech. I mean, like, we've we've proven, I think, that anything's solvable. The the problem now is like, hey. Do we have the, like, let's say, the dynamic the the demographics to create all problems? Because once we create the problems, then we can create solutions. So it's just more of for me right now, I'm just trying to I'm I'm most interested in getting more people into tech, that look and don't look like me. Just just so, you know, like, well, for 1, I don't know what else they're gonna do. But for for for 2, you know, like, it's not as hard as you would think. You know? Like, it it's not. It's really just solving puzzles. It's just we make it difficult because we like to be elitist. Yeah. Yeah. That's really good point. Yeah. Does it require 9 computer monitors to be as good as you? I mean Or 12. Some of these Just like you gonna be better. Just like in monopoly, man. Like, it's all about real estate, man. And the more screen real estate you got, the better. Yeah. So it sound I after you. My bad. My bad. I I was gonna say it sounds like you need the VisionPRO from Apple coming out because in your whole you're everywhere you look, you can have screens. You just loop around in a chair and see screens all over you. Right? Or you're you're in Vegas. Just go to the sphere and put all your monitors on the sphere. Yeah. The the the, ironically enough, the one jealous, the the the most jealous I've ever been as a developer. We had a, we had a guy who you could tell he had it. You know? Like, you can just see it. Like, you can just see it. But he only worked on one one screen, and I had to pair a program with him. And it was just like, man, how do you do this? But he had the advantage because it's like, sometimes I will not be able to work if I don't have a bunch of monitors, but he could work anywhere at any time. So just go camping on this monitor, and it's like so it's like there's it's like everything, man. There's wind and there's plus and losses about the whole monitor con conversation. Yeah. Well, awesome. I think I think it came across in this conversation, your real passion for engineering, and that's why you've gotten into it, but also your passion for people. So for for people who are listening, you know, how can they follow you? Where can they get in contact with you if they wanna get in contact with you? Is it LinkedIn or other things as well? Let let people know where you're at. I usually just use LinkedIn to be quite honest with you. I have a YouTube, but I don't really do anything on it. It's just more for me to play around with. I've been playing with the algorithm on both of them. But it would just be LinkedIn. Just, I think it's just Ollie Payne. LinkedIn slash Ollie hyphen Payne, a l I hyphen p a y n e. But, you know, I'm focusing on those 2, man. I'm not gonna venture out too much. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have little time we have little time for extra even projects, but so it's interesting that you even do algorithms. But, I think I can I think I can speak for Pedro? This has been a fantastic conversation. I feel like every conversation we have for this podcast is almost completely different, and yours was more so around kind of compassion for people and compassion for engineering. So I think we we both greatly appreciate the time, and we'll put your contact info in the the description, but definitely think that people can find some some good tidbits from what you've said today. So definitely appreciate the time. Yeah. Well, hey. Hey. I appreciate talking to both of you, and, hey, they have a good product too. Well, hey. You guys have good clothes. So if people need clothes, check out Stitch Fix. Hey. Win win. Love the plugs. Appreciate it.",[245,246,247],"042567c1-de26-486b-8897-90ab0ecde163","7615ffba-e3e6-4e5c-9332-69e15b7d68a4","b86ba74d-0fa8-480c-a8dc-b368dcfb1651",[],{"id":144,"number":145,"show":122,"year":146,"episodes":250},[148,149,150,151,152],{"id":152,"slug":252,"vimeo_id":253,"description":254,"tile":255,"length":256,"resources":8,"people":257,"episode_number":263,"published":264,"title":265,"video_transcript_html":266,"video_transcript_text":267,"content":8,"seo":8,"status":130,"episode_people":268,"recommendations":272,"season":273},"tom-morano","902512802","Tom shares his unexpected ascent into leadership and his unique perspective on guiding teams. This episode offers valuable lessons on leadership and personal growth.","76e00679-8ef7-4e09-bc64-f814b04e0235",30,[258,259,260],{"name":162,"url":163},{"name":165,"url":166},{"name":261,"url":262},"Tom Morano","https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-morano-719022b/",5,"2024-02-22","Tom Morano, Technical Lead at SMX Consulting","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Just like a sidebar, I noticed you had some instruments in the back. Do you play guitar? Is that a guitar?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: It is a guitar. It's actually a guitar case. The guitar is millimeter. But I I, I'm not the typical dev. I, sing and play in a band.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Dev rockstar. I like it. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Tech Talk. We have Tom with us. Tom, would you mind introducing yourself to everyone in the audience? Just give a brief introduction, who you are, what you do, and then we'll we'll kinda dive into the conversation for today.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Name's Tom Marano. I live in Buffalo, New York, and I am currently a technical lead for SMX Consulting on a, state project.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Awesome. Thanks so much. We, we had a intro conversation a couple weeks ago, and you had a couple interesting stories from your background. So if you don't mind, could you give us a little bit of your background in engineering, how you got to where you are today? We'll probably interrupt you a couple times to ask some questions, but remember a couple points that I'd I'd love to see if you bring back up just about your history.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So how did you get into engineering and kind of what's what's been your journey along the way?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: So I've always been a fan of technology. I was the kid who literally took everything apart in my parents' house. Yes, my dad how many times it took apart his, like, $1,000 stereo and tried to put it back together. Happened a lot. So always been big fan of just anything tech.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Love video games, obviously, growing up. And, actually got my start really building computers and everything when I was younger and CD burners became a thing. And, I quickly learned how to, get music, but that, you know, is, the legibly as possible. Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The leg away. So quickly learn how to burn CDs, and I actually, would make CDs for people in in high school and everything and, you know, sell them to people, for, you know, 5 bucks. And, through school too, I I went on a program a little bit, did a little bit HTML and, c on the side. And then, college stuck with that as as far as school went. I did deviate a little bit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I got into a little bit of electrical, engineering a little bit for a couple years and then decided I liked programming better. So, went back and, got my bachelor's in computer science, from an online school and got my first job, programming for a health care company here in Buffalo, learning the ropes, most of it the hard way because there wasn't a ton of guidance for me at most of the places I worked early on in my career, unfortunately. It was kind of the wild west where it was just kinda me figuring it out. And also, demands the Internet wasn't as big as it is now, so it wasn't a good resource to even fall back on. So it was always hard trying to figure my way around things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then as I kept growing in my career, jumping from position to position, I was able to find some decent mentors around me and, eventually ended up at a larger, health care comp well, benefits company here in Buffalo that was very, very well structured as far as their documentation organization. Had a really, really good agile practice in place. And, also, like, kinda gave me the guidance as far as, like, how to properly run SDLC and for an organization and just give me those guideposts as far as, like, how you can effectively create a really good application. And just good communication practices, good team camaraderie, ideas being spread openly around. It was all learned at this, one shop in Buffalo I worked at.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>They're actually not in existence anymore. They're called Liaison, so I'll just throw the name out there. But they were a startup here in Buffalo for years, and I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of really close dev friends when I was there. All of us have gone our separate ways and had our own successes, but it was a really good group of people to work with, and I learned a lot from them. And that's where I got my first leadership role too and, learned a lot there.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>One of the trainings they gave us for all of our the new team leads out there was, something called radical candor, which is a book that's out there a lot of people read. And really good, information there as how to, like, communicate with your team effectively to get get them to focus on the task at hand, find out what they need to do, but also not be a dick doing it, you know. Yeah. You don't have to roll with nigh or fist. You know, you can you can just be stern, tell them what they need to do, but also listen and understand why they might be thinking a wrong thing or in a certain direction, which could even open up your eyes if you're thinking about it wrong too.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that that just opening up that dialogue back and forth really good. And, and when my time ended there, I ended up going to a couple other places. One was a start up I worked at about a about 6 or 7 months ago. That was a new experience for me too. Never worked at a startup that was very, very small, but, ended up being brought in as, like, the second to the VP of engineering.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, eventually, he ended up leaving and, you know, a role was offered to me, and I got thrown to the wolves trying to learn how to run an entire software organization by myself. It was small still, but learned a lot of things the hard way and how to really keep things organized from a very high level. And so direct people down, empower them to run the other parts of the team that I can't have my hands in all the time because I have to think of things from the higher level and think forward as far as, like, getting the product out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah. Unfortunately, that one folded too. But, I then got this role as a consultant for SMX and, Ceramic.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: That's awesome. Nice. I I'd love to hear a little bit about your path from you know, obviously, you've worked for the larger organizations, the startups. I'd love to hear your perspective on the difference and what the problems are, if they're more similar or more different between those, like, large scale organizations or small ones. Like, I know coming from, you know, most of my background was moving to San Francisco, working for a bunch of different startups and ad tech, all kinds of different technology startups, music as well.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But then I went to work at Juniper Networks. That's actually where I met John. And, obviously, Juniper Networks is a 10,000 person organization. So it's it's fun to see the mess from, you know, the the small problems and the startup land versus, like, the more corporate bureaucracy stuff. But I'd love to hear from your perspective, like, which which you enjoyed more, and just how you kind of see the difference in those, organizations and and building and growing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I will say the one common theme that almost every company I work for has is organization. Like, it's hands down, it's it's the number one issue that most of them have. And\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Depending on who's in charge, it could go good or bad if they're willing to listen to change, if they want to move and pivot. I'm learning that a lot actually through the consulting work I'm doing now. This is my first consulting position I've ever held. And just seeing how the client is struggling with that, and they brought the team I'm with in to try to help them just use agile, which is, you know, pretty common in what most of us devs do these days. Most places use agile.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Some better than others, but they at least try. And, the biggest thing there is just breaking the problem into smaller pieces, which is more digestible and doesn't seem like the world is gonna fall apart because this this problem is just so huge. Like, that's the one benefit of agile. You know? And it's if if you don't have people at the top that can see that and there's no one voicing it, you just have a bunch of, yes men all over the place just nodding their heads and saying, yep.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We'll get that done. We'll get that done. The weight usually falls down on the people at the bottom doing the work, which is the devs. So then you don't get a good team of devs because they don't wanna be there and deal with that crap. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yep.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You know, they they they just wanna do their job most of the time and go home and feel like they've built something cool that day for the most part. You know? And that's that's like the feel I've loved. And the the first time I really got it was at that, dev shop I worked at in Buffalo for that big gap, where I learned most of what I know today. And, before that, it was a lot of chaos.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, the IT department was always just like those guys in the corner. They do their thing. Nobody really cares. And and it it there wasn't really any organization around it. There there was just yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Can you guys get this done for us? You know? We need it soon.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: And and being part of that, large organization that was very well structured really showed me the benefit of just working together collaboratively with people and not just saying throw it to that guy over the fence and he'll figure it out. You know? That that whole, like, planning phase of building the product that you're on became more enjoyable. Learning more about the architecture patterns became more enjoyable because I was I felt more invested in the work.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: And that was that was a big thing. Like, just feeling like what I did made a difference was like a huge eye opener to me. Like, oh, this I can make a difference doing this stuff. This is cool. I have my voice matters.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm not just the guy in the corner. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: It's it's always the that that's that's the thing that just made work enjoyable for me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to go back to something that you mentioned from your childhood that kind of peaked you started your curiosity. You mentioned taking things apart and trying to rebuild them. That's something that my dad used to do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>He used to take apart things back in the sixties, and, that was something that I did when I was a kid. I would take apart things, and I I would usually not rebuild them. I would usually take them apart just to see how they worked and then leave the parts everywhere. Mhmm. But I've I found that that kind of curiosity has transitioned into adulthood still with physical things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, if the weed whacker is broken, I'll just take it apart. I, you know, I don't wanna go buy a new one, so I'll fix it. But I find that some people are just scared to take things apart and try it, not only with physical things, but also with software or leadership or organizations or you know? As as you grow in leadership, you have to wear many hats. So do you find that that's also a similar case for you that because you were able to have that curiosity when you were young and did first off, did it continue to these days, you still kinda tinker with things like that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But do you find that the ability to be comfortable taking things apart and dissecting things has helped you grow into a leadership position both in bigger companies and start ups?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Definitely. The the curiosity to not be afraid to try things on my own, that's the biggest thing I think that probably helped me become a leader right now just because I I will I'm not I'm not scared to speak out. Like, I I will let my voice be heard if I don't agree with a point. Sometimes through a fault, I might Yep. Not I might put my foot in the mouth sometimes, you know, and yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But at at least I'm not scared of expressing my point of view and trying to get it across. Not always right. Nobody's nobody's ever always right. That's that's the one thing And, you know, when I was younger, I was definitely more hard headed. Definitely more hard headed.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>As I got older, it I just slowed I would say probably slowed down is the best way to put it and wasn't so like go go go go attitude. It was more like, okay, let me listen and figure out what other people are thinking. Yeah. And try and get their point of view. Like that's that was the biggest change, beginning into the leadership role was like trying to change my mindset that way and, the the one like, I'll bring back up Radical Candor.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's one of the big points in there is to be a good listener and understand your people, understand their points of view, understand why they think this way or approach they're taking is right. You know, might not be right, but at least you can understand the point of view and can then, if they are wrong, you can then tell them, well, it's that's not exactly right because a, b and c. Because you can then understand why the thing is. You don't just yell at them and say, no. You have to do it this way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, you you could talk to people that way. They usually can come to some, rapport with them a little bit easier than just saying get this done or you're in trouble or something.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a differ difference between a boss and a leader. So Mhmm. I I totally agree. Do you find those types of yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We hope our boss isn't listening, but, but, yeah, yeah, do you do you find that you're able to then also see those types of characteristics in people that you're now leading? Or when you were climbing the ranks, did you see those traits in nobody else, and that's why it was potentially easier for you to also climb into leadership? And then do you see that those types of traits in those that are around you, whether they're other leaders or people who work for you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Definitely for sure. It's it's not everyone either. Like, there's there's a lot of devs, obviously, who are very introverted. It's just the nature of what we do. You know, a lot of our stuff that we work on is solo by ourselves, and that's the way a lot of us like it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Not everyone's born to be a leader. They just, like, wanna get their work done or work on something cool by themselves. Don't really care too much about anything else. I definitely have some of those on my team right now. I will say they are sometimes the hardest ones to manage because you have to pull information out of them most of the time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But the ones that do have that curiosity to go the extra mile without having to be told exactly what to do, Those ones definitely have those traits in them because they they wanna go the extra mile. They wanna look at the next step without having to be told to go look at the next step. They they wanna understand why they just did and created the, went through the business roles. They just added into the app. They wanna know why they had to do that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So they're going to go down the path, understand the whole process, the whole business process they just had to implement and not just the little piece they worked on. Yeah. And that that helps give them a bigger picture so that they can maybe go into designing a whole system next time and then leading that design and so on and so on. Just building those steps because they have that curiosity to get their head around the whole thing, which is, I think, another part of being a good leader too, to understand everything involved with the processes that you're managing and going through. Because if you if you don't understand that, you're just some guy talking in the back telling people what to do all day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Right. Just issuing directives. Yeah. How do you when you identify these traits in folks, as their leader, like, how do you take those skills and and build on to them to, you know, train the next, you know, generation of leaders or or help build them into something like your role that you have now?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Slowly giving them more responsibility, I think, is the first thing. Like, gaining that trust with them, and even letting letting them fail too sometimes is good because they need to be able to deal with some of the failures too that come with it if they maybe pick a bad decision. Learning how to bounce back from that or pivot to a different direction if they realize, oh, this isn't gonna work. We gotta try something else. But, yeah, it's slowly giving them more and more responsibilities and eventually even letting them lead certain projects or whatever you happen to be on.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's that's a good step to try to let them spread their wings a little bit Yeah. I think.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Do you ever do you ever miss being an or do you still individually contribute, or do you ever miss not being a leader? Are there other times where you're you just say, man, I wish I was just plugging away at code or or developing something today and not having to deal with bureaucracy or just some sort of issue that arises that leaders have to deal with? Or do you just love everything that comes at you, deal with the things that are pain in the ass, and and or or, you know, how do you feel about being a leader in your future for yourself as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I mean, I'm human. I'm gonna have days where I just don't wanna deal with some stuff going on. Like, if there's a 1,000,000 fires going on and I just wanna rip my hair out, it's like, I can't do this today. Gonna gonna have those days. It happens.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, I do love just leading the project and deciding the direction that, say the team goes or say technology paths that we investigate and go down. It it does it is harder for me sometimes to to pull away. Like, I I do wanna get involved and, like, actually do some coding once in a while. I I get to once in a while. I do it on the side still.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Did mention this earlier. I know we talked about it in our pre call, but I do kind of run a a DJ business on the side that I like, always use as, like, a testing ground for some of my, project some of just my skill and expertise, like, growing that. I did a lot with dotnet in there at in the Azure world. And, it's it's helped me just experiment with things in the side and understand more, especially around, cloud architecture and design. I learned a lot of that just on my own ad hoc, and I was able to apply it when I got to that startup role.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I did in the role before this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I guess the side projects are a good way to, like, flex those coding muscles still where you're not able to individually contribute to a project you're managing or leading, at least, like, on the side. Mhmm.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. They keep you\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: so that's really cool.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. They keep you up to date too with some of the the cool new tools out there as well, you know, because you don't always get to use those in your job. Yeah. Sometimes it's good to know that because then you can even say, hey. When some problem comes around, maybe it can be solved by this thing I messed with at home.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That was that was actually gonna be my next question was what, you know, what is some new tech that you've been able to find in those side projects or in just general browsing the Internet that you find cool with others? We've talked about cryptocurrency and and Bitcoin and random types of things and AI, obviously, but are there some tools out there that you've started to uncover personally or in your regular job that you really see some potential to have a really cool use case for yourself?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I mean, Python is the new hotness everybody's learning these days, mostly just for the big data stuff, especially with Fintech. I've I've started dabbling with that. The the client expressed an interest in it. So I went on the side to start learning it on my own just so I can understand maybe from a perspective that, it can be implemented with the clients. To be fair, I I don't know if it's going to work for the clients if we're looking into it, but at least I know ahead of time before just saying, yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Let's do that. Yeah. Let's see. I I've I I've dabbled a lot with, a lot of PaaS and SaaS offerings in the cloud, mostly mostly in Azure, a little bit in AWS, using very, small services using, like, some of the functions in Azure along with, like, a front end. It's a very low cost way of creating, like, a a web application semi quickly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. And then, of course, everything you can do with containers these days in even you can even wrap Azure functions now in containers. They're so handy. And running in, like, Linux Linux boxes, you don't even have to stand up Windows boxes anymore. It's always I mean, it's been around for a while now.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's it's gaining more traction these days by more companies, which is good, I think.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. For sure. I think it's it's funny you mentioned that too because I think for the side projects and and just for these, like, you know, self applications or learning on the side, that's actually how we hear a lot of developers in our community find out about about Directus, about us. Right? Like, open source technology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's like, hey. Let me try this for a side project. And then all of a sudden, at some point, their their business or their company has a need that it's like, oh, this might be perfect. I've been using this for years on my, you know, DJ side business. Like, maybe it could apply to this organization I'm working with.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, that that's pretty cool to hear. I also just like a sidebar, I noticed you had some instruments in the back. Do you play guitar? Is that a guitar?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: It is a guitar. It's actually a guitar case. The guitar is in the living room. Awesome. I I, I'm not the typical dev.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I, sing and play in a band.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Dev rock star. I like it. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That's a very common trait. We see yeah. We see a lot of developers who you have to have side hobbies as well. I I doubt any developers, hopefully, not too many, sit in front of a computer for 18 hours a day. Though it maybe it's gaming.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, that's a hobby too, but we find a lot of devs, play instruments. And maybe it's because instruments are kind of it's kind of like a puzzle and taking apart things and putting them together. Music is kind of like a puzzle like that as well. So is that something you can\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: use for your Right? Still math and language and basically the same as, like, coding just in a different if in a different way. I think we have enough musicians within Directus to form a band, but maybe we do that one day. Yep.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: That big dev shop I worked at, there was a lot of guitar players a lot. Like, some of the some of the, director level guys, they all had, like, acoustics in their office.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I remember when I got to when I moved to San Francisco, I'd gone to the the Dropbox office, and, I think the CEO was like a drummer or guitarist or something. And they had set up 2 jam rooms where people could go and, like, they had the whole full band set up, and you can go at any time and just jam out and take out your frustration or whatever you wanna do on the drums. And, I thought that's a really cool idea.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: That is a very cool idea. I like that. If I worked at a physical office anymore, I would say, yeah. Let's do that. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. Right. Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: What is there anything that you see that might you know, what are your takes on things like AI? Are there things out there that you see that have are overblown or misunderstood? You know? We hear a lot of people with different opinions on that or maybe a technology that you that other people use that you find overblown. Anything that you see on that side of the spectrum?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I mean, I personally think AI is a big hype right now just like, NFTs before and then, you know, Bitcoin before. I mean, Bitcoin is still big now, but, you know, at its peak, it was ginormous, you know. Yeah. Now it's slowly coming back down to earth. NFTs have pretty much died.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And AI, it's it's got its benefits. It's cool, but it's it's the way people communicate about it that's, I think, wrong. It's it's not actual AI, like the definition. It can't think by itself. It's just large language Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Large language models. It's just taking it from a very big dictionary and guessing what it should be based on a bunch of other texts that it has in this thing. It can't actually think by itself.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: And that's that's the one thing people get all crazy about, like, thinking it's gonna take everyone's job.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Like, sentient stuff. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: It's not sentient. Yeah. Can't do that yet. Someday it probably will, but it's it's not. And that's that's the one thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's it's always I always find a little bit just annoying when people freak out about it. It's like it's it's not there yet. Yeah. Do you\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: think the sentience is, like, years away, decades away? I mean, if I mean, it's hard to tell.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. It's really hard to tell. I mean, it's\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I guess only the devs at OpenAI and Entropic and some of those others probably know, like, what the timeline looks like.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't even know if they're they're on the right track with that. Because, like, honestly, if they're gonna do sentience, it would have to be probably more maps like a human brain. And I don't think that's the way they're doing any of these AI model like, models. I think they're all just big dictionaries for the most part, but guess as good as mine.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. So what would be some advice you give for people on your team, for example, whom you might see leadership traits in or other people who would be watching this? If somebody feels like they have the traits to be a leader obviously, you've mentioned a book that I myself have read, and that book I do think is an incredible book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Mhmm.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: But you've mentioned not being afraid to try things, not being afraid to fail. What is your advice to people who still might have hesitance to even try something because they are scared, Or what are some other things that you would give some advice for people looking to grow into a leadership position?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: The biggest thing is tell your boss. Like, communicate that with your boss. That's that's where I started. I told my boss I wanted to do these things, and they helped me get my position myself in the right place so I eventually could be moved up to a team lead and run up my run my first team. So you you really have to just not be scared to tell your boss and, like, move up that way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If you're scared to tell your boss, then maybe you're not ready to lead because you you can't be scared to do that stuff. That would be the first thing. And, after that, it would be don't be scared. Don't be afraid to fail. Like, that's the biggest thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, because you're you're gonna make mistakes. You're if you especially if you're a new leader, you're just starting doing this. You're not gonna know everything off the bat. No one's perfect at this right away. It takes lots of practice.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then the last thing would just be be open to criticism and people telling you maybe that's not the best way. You have to be able to change and pivot and listen.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That's that's such good advice actually is telling your boss, telling the people who have done that journey themselves because a good leader would want their their people underneath of them who want to progress in their careers to do be able to do that. So I don't think we've had anybody mention that, but it that is probably one of the most important things that you can do is find people who have done that journey and tell them. Get that guidance.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Mhmm.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Are there still leaders that, that you had in the past that you still stay in touch with and that maybe mentor you? Or how how valuable do you think the community that you've built, you know, over over your career is is still helping you today?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I've kinda lost touch with with, my first mentor I had. He ended up moving across the country. I haven't really kept in touch with him. But my peers, I definitely have. Like, my other, manager teammates that I had, actually brought a bunch of them in to work at that start up I was at.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, awesome. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: We had a really, really good tight team there, and I've kept in touch with a lot of the other manager friends that I've made over the years, dev managers.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And a\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: lot of them have made it even higher than me so far. So Yeah. They're really on the way too. And, like, we all have our different opinions about to how to lead a team as well. And it's good to bounce those ideas off of them to see how they would handle the situation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What would they do different? How would they handle the communication between a problem person or someone who's a little bit or having issues? You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I I think community is huge both in work and outside of work. And Pedro and I have been at 3 different companies together. Not all we didn't move every place at the same time, but we've, you know, kept in contact as well as other people at other companies I've in contact with who I feel like I can pour into them some advice, and, they can do the same for me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I find that community is also a good answer, because Pedro and I are have been friends for a long time. So it's it's kind of good to see each other grow and encourage each other, to be able to do, you know, what we wanna do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. And a little friendly competition as well. For sure. Especially since we're both we're both in the same role, just different territories now, so that's always thrilling.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. We we have this East Coast, West Coast, spiff or or beef, I guess, is the right word to a little bit. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Crazy. I mean, we Cool.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: No. I think by you, John. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. No. I think this is this is all really good advice. Like, I mean, I'm I'm even taking some of this to to apply to myself, obviously, as, like, an aspiring, leader in a future organization. That'd be this is really awesome help, for me as well.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, hopefully, everyone watching is, taking notes and and learning from you, but we'd love to know, like, where where can people follow you if they'd like to you know, you got LinkedIn and maybe some other projects, if you wanna just\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: take it off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: You can shout out your DJ thing if you want to.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Alright. For anyone in Buffalo. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: To be to be fair, I've kinda wound down my DJ business over for years since I haven't had time to do it with my my jobs. Yeah. So I've kinda pushed the way the band stuff's kinda taken more. That's that's more of my thing these days. But LinkedIn, you can find me at Thomas Moreno, and I'm also on Facebook and Instagram.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Same name. And, yeah, that's pretty much it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for your time today. Everyone, go follow him. We'll put his information in our notes, but go follow him for some good wisdom. You you really gave some good advice there that I've used some of it myself and some that I also will take, into account for sure.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So thanks so much for your time today, Tom.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Thanks, Tom.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Very much. Thanks, guys. Cheers. Bye.\u003C/p>","Just like a sidebar, I noticed you had some instruments in the back. Do you play guitar? Is that a guitar? It is a guitar. It's actually a guitar case. The guitar is millimeter. But I I, I'm not the typical dev. I, sing and play in a band. Dev rockstar. I like it. Yeah. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Tech Talk. We have Tom with us. Tom, would you mind introducing yourself to everyone in the audience? Just give a brief introduction, who you are, what you do, and then we'll we'll kinda dive into the conversation for today. Name's Tom Marano. I live in Buffalo, New York, and I am currently a technical lead for SMX Consulting on a, state project. Awesome. Thanks so much. We, we had a intro conversation a couple weeks ago, and you had a couple interesting stories from your background. So if you don't mind, could you give us a little bit of your background in engineering, how you got to where you are today? We'll probably interrupt you a couple times to ask some questions, but remember a couple points that I'd I'd love to see if you bring back up just about your history. So how did you get into engineering and kind of what's what's been your journey along the way? So I've always been a fan of technology. I was the kid who literally took everything apart in my parents' house. Yes, my dad how many times it took apart his, like, $1,000 stereo and tried to put it back together. Happened a lot. So always been big fan of just anything tech. Love video games, obviously, growing up. And, actually got my start really building computers and everything when I was younger and CD burners became a thing. And, I quickly learned how to, get music, but that, you know, is, the legibly as possible. Yeah. Yeah. The leg away. So quickly learn how to burn CDs, and I actually, would make CDs for people in in high school and everything and, you know, sell them to people, for, you know, 5 bucks. And, through school too, I I went on a program a little bit, did a little bit HTML and, c on the side. And then, college stuck with that as as far as school went. I did deviate a little bit. I got into a little bit of electrical, engineering a little bit for a couple years and then decided I liked programming better. So, went back and, got my bachelor's in computer science, from an online school and got my first job, programming for a health care company here in Buffalo, learning the ropes, most of it the hard way because there wasn't a ton of guidance for me at most of the places I worked early on in my career, unfortunately. It was kind of the wild west where it was just kinda me figuring it out. And also, demands the Internet wasn't as big as it is now, so it wasn't a good resource to even fall back on. So it was always hard trying to figure my way around things. And then as I kept growing in my career, jumping from position to position, I was able to find some decent mentors around me and, eventually ended up at a larger, health care comp well, benefits company here in Buffalo that was very, very well structured as far as their documentation organization. Had a really, really good agile practice in place. And, also, like, kinda gave me the guidance as far as, like, how to properly run SDLC and for an organization and just give me those guideposts as far as, like, how you can effectively create a really good application. And just good communication practices, good team camaraderie, ideas being spread openly around. It was all learned at this, one shop in Buffalo I worked at. They're actually not in existence anymore. They're called Liaison, so I'll just throw the name out there. But they were a startup here in Buffalo for years, and I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of really close dev friends when I was there. All of us have gone our separate ways and had our own successes, but it was a really good group of people to work with, and I learned a lot from them. And that's where I got my first leadership role too and, learned a lot there. One of the trainings they gave us for all of our the new team leads out there was, something called radical candor, which is a book that's out there a lot of people read. And really good, information there as how to, like, communicate with your team effectively to get get them to focus on the task at hand, find out what they need to do, but also not be a dick doing it, you know. Yeah. You don't have to roll with nigh or fist. You know, you can you can just be stern, tell them what they need to do, but also listen and understand why they might be thinking a wrong thing or in a certain direction, which could even open up your eyes if you're thinking about it wrong too. So that that just opening up that dialogue back and forth really good. And, and when my time ended there, I ended up going to a couple other places. One was a start up I worked at about a about 6 or 7 months ago. That was a new experience for me too. Never worked at a startup that was very, very small, but, ended up being brought in as, like, the second to the VP of engineering. And, eventually, he ended up leaving and, you know, a role was offered to me, and I got thrown to the wolves trying to learn how to run an entire software organization by myself. It was small still, but learned a lot of things the hard way and how to really keep things organized from a very high level. And so direct people down, empower them to run the other parts of the team that I can't have my hands in all the time because I have to think of things from the higher level and think forward as far as, like, getting the product out. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Unfortunately, that one folded too. But, I then got this role as a consultant for SMX and, Ceramic. That's awesome. Nice. I I'd love to hear a little bit about your path from you know, obviously, you've worked for the larger organizations, the startups. I'd love to hear your perspective on the difference and what the problems are, if they're more similar or more different between those, like, large scale organizations or small ones. Like, I know coming from, you know, most of my background was moving to San Francisco, working for a bunch of different startups and ad tech, all kinds of different technology startups, music as well. But then I went to work at Juniper Networks. That's actually where I met John. And, obviously, Juniper Networks is a 10,000 person organization. So it's it's fun to see the mess from, you know, the the small problems and the startup land versus, like, the more corporate bureaucracy stuff. But I'd love to hear from your perspective, like, which which you enjoyed more, and just how you kind of see the difference in those, organizations and and building and growing. Yeah. I will say the one common theme that almost every company I work for has is organization. Like, it's hands down, it's it's the number one issue that most of them have. And Yeah. Depending on who's in charge, it could go good or bad if they're willing to listen to change, if they want to move and pivot. I'm learning that a lot actually through the consulting work I'm doing now. This is my first consulting position I've ever held. And just seeing how the client is struggling with that, and they brought the team I'm with in to try to help them just use agile, which is, you know, pretty common in what most of us devs do these days. Most places use agile. Some better than others, but they at least try. And, the biggest thing there is just breaking the problem into smaller pieces, which is more digestible and doesn't seem like the world is gonna fall apart because this this problem is just so huge. Like, that's the one benefit of agile. You know? And it's if if you don't have people at the top that can see that and there's no one voicing it, you just have a bunch of, yes men all over the place just nodding their heads and saying, yep. We'll get that done. We'll get that done. The weight usually falls down on the people at the bottom doing the work, which is the devs. So then you don't get a good team of devs because they don't wanna be there and deal with that crap. You know? Yep. You know, they they they just wanna do their job most of the time and go home and feel like they've built something cool that day for the most part. You know? And that's that's like the feel I've loved. And the the first time I really got it was at that, dev shop I worked at in Buffalo for that big gap, where I learned most of what I know today. And, before that, it was a lot of chaos. Like, the IT department was always just like those guys in the corner. They do their thing. Nobody really cares. And and it it there wasn't really any organization around it. There there was just yeah. Can you guys get this done for us? You know? We need it soon. Yeah. And and being part of that, large organization that was very well structured really showed me the benefit of just working together collaboratively with people and not just saying throw it to that guy over the fence and he'll figure it out. You know? That that whole, like, planning phase of building the product that you're on became more enjoyable. Learning more about the architecture patterns became more enjoyable because I was I felt more invested in the work. Yeah. And that was that was a big thing. Like, just feeling like what I did made a difference was like a huge eye opener to me. Like, oh, this I can make a difference doing this stuff. This is cool. I have my voice matters. I'm not just the guy in the corner. You know? Yeah. It's it's always the that that's that's the thing that just made work enjoyable for me. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to go back to something that you mentioned from your childhood that kind of peaked you started your curiosity. You mentioned taking things apart and trying to rebuild them. That's something that my dad used to do. He used to take apart things back in the sixties, and, that was something that I did when I was a kid. I would take apart things, and I I would usually not rebuild them. I would usually take them apart just to see how they worked and then leave the parts everywhere. Mhmm. But I've I found that that kind of curiosity has transitioned into adulthood still with physical things. Like, if the weed whacker is broken, I'll just take it apart. I, you know, I don't wanna go buy a new one, so I'll fix it. But I find that some people are just scared to take things apart and try it, not only with physical things, but also with software or leadership or organizations or you know? As as you grow in leadership, you have to wear many hats. So do you find that that's also a similar case for you that because you were able to have that curiosity when you were young and did first off, did it continue to these days, you still kinda tinker with things like that. But do you find that the ability to be comfortable taking things apart and dissecting things has helped you grow into a leadership position both in bigger companies and start ups? Definitely. The the curiosity to not be afraid to try things on my own, that's the biggest thing I think that probably helped me become a leader right now just because I I will I'm not I'm not scared to speak out. Like, I I will let my voice be heard if I don't agree with a point. Sometimes through a fault, I might Yep. Not I might put my foot in the mouth sometimes, you know, and yeah. But at at least I'm not scared of expressing my point of view and trying to get it across. Not always right. Nobody's nobody's ever always right. That's that's the one thing And, you know, when I was younger, I was definitely more hard headed. Definitely more hard headed. As I got older, it I just slowed I would say probably slowed down is the best way to put it and wasn't so like go go go go attitude. It was more like, okay, let me listen and figure out what other people are thinking. Yeah. And try and get their point of view. Like that's that was the biggest change, beginning into the leadership role was like trying to change my mindset that way and, the the one like, I'll bring back up Radical Candor. That's one of the big points in there is to be a good listener and understand your people, understand their points of view, understand why they think this way or approach they're taking is right. You know, might not be right, but at least you can understand the point of view and can then, if they are wrong, you can then tell them, well, it's that's not exactly right because a, b and c. Because you can then understand why the thing is. You don't just yell at them and say, no. You have to do it this way. You know, you you could talk to people that way. They usually can come to some, rapport with them a little bit easier than just saying get this done or you're in trouble or something. Yeah. There's a differ difference between a boss and a leader. So Mhmm. I I totally agree. Do you find those types of yeah. We hope our boss isn't listening, but, but, yeah, yeah, do you do you find that you're able to then also see those types of characteristics in people that you're now leading? Or when you were climbing the ranks, did you see those traits in nobody else, and that's why it was potentially easier for you to also climb into leadership? And then do you see that those types of traits in those that are around you, whether they're other leaders or people who work for you? Definitely for sure. It's it's not everyone either. Like, there's there's a lot of devs, obviously, who are very introverted. It's just the nature of what we do. You know, a lot of our stuff that we work on is solo by ourselves, and that's the way a lot of us like it. Not everyone's born to be a leader. They just, like, wanna get their work done or work on something cool by themselves. Don't really care too much about anything else. I definitely have some of those on my team right now. I will say they are sometimes the hardest ones to manage because you have to pull information out of them most of the time. But the ones that do have that curiosity to go the extra mile without having to be told exactly what to do, Those ones definitely have those traits in them because they they wanna go the extra mile. They wanna look at the next step without having to be told to go look at the next step. They they wanna understand why they just did and created the, went through the business roles. They just added into the app. They wanna know why they had to do that. So they're going to go down the path, understand the whole process, the whole business process they just had to implement and not just the little piece they worked on. Yeah. And that that helps give them a bigger picture so that they can maybe go into designing a whole system next time and then leading that design and so on and so on. Just building those steps because they have that curiosity to get their head around the whole thing, which is, I think, another part of being a good leader too, to understand everything involved with the processes that you're managing and going through. Because if you if you don't understand that, you're just some guy talking in the back telling people what to do all day. Right. Just issuing directives. Yeah. How do you when you identify these traits in folks, as their leader, like, how do you take those skills and and build on to them to, you know, train the next, you know, generation of leaders or or help build them into something like your role that you have now? Slowly giving them more responsibility, I think, is the first thing. Like, gaining that trust with them, and even letting letting them fail too sometimes is good because they need to be able to deal with some of the failures too that come with it if they maybe pick a bad decision. Learning how to bounce back from that or pivot to a different direction if they realize, oh, this isn't gonna work. We gotta try something else. But, yeah, it's slowly giving them more and more responsibilities and eventually even letting them lead certain projects or whatever you happen to be on. That's that's a good step to try to let them spread their wings a little bit Yeah. I think. Do you ever do you ever miss being an or do you still individually contribute, or do you ever miss not being a leader? Are there other times where you're you just say, man, I wish I was just plugging away at code or or developing something today and not having to deal with bureaucracy or just some sort of issue that arises that leaders have to deal with? Or do you just love everything that comes at you, deal with the things that are pain in the ass, and and or or, you know, how do you feel about being a leader in your future for yourself as well? I mean, I'm human. I'm gonna have days where I just don't wanna deal with some stuff going on. Like, if there's a 1,000,000 fires going on and I just wanna rip my hair out, it's like, I can't do this today. Gonna gonna have those days. It happens. But, I do love just leading the project and deciding the direction that, say the team goes or say technology paths that we investigate and go down. It it does it is harder for me sometimes to to pull away. Like, I I do wanna get involved and, like, actually do some coding once in a while. I I get to once in a while. I do it on the side still. Did mention this earlier. I know we talked about it in our pre call, but I do kind of run a a DJ business on the side that I like, always use as, like, a testing ground for some of my, project some of just my skill and expertise, like, growing that. I did a lot with dotnet in there at in the Azure world. And, it's it's helped me just experiment with things in the side and understand more, especially around, cloud architecture and design. I learned a lot of that just on my own ad hoc, and I was able to apply it when I got to that startup role. I did in the role before this. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the side projects are a good way to, like, flex those coding muscles still where you're not able to individually contribute to a project you're managing or leading, at least, like, on the side. Mhmm. Yeah. They keep you so that's really cool. Yeah. They keep you up to date too with some of the the cool new tools out there as well, you know, because you don't always get to use those in your job. Yeah. Sometimes it's good to know that because then you can even say, hey. When some problem comes around, maybe it can be solved by this thing I messed with at home. Yeah. That was that was actually gonna be my next question was what, you know, what is some new tech that you've been able to find in those side projects or in just general browsing the Internet that you find cool with others? We've talked about cryptocurrency and and Bitcoin and random types of things and AI, obviously, but are there some tools out there that you've started to uncover personally or in your regular job that you really see some potential to have a really cool use case for yourself? I mean, Python is the new hotness everybody's learning these days, mostly just for the big data stuff, especially with Fintech. I've I've started dabbling with that. The the client expressed an interest in it. So I went on the side to start learning it on my own just so I can understand maybe from a perspective that, it can be implemented with the clients. To be fair, I I don't know if it's going to work for the clients if we're looking into it, but at least I know ahead of time before just saying, yeah. Let's do that. Yeah. Let's see. I I've I I've dabbled a lot with, a lot of PaaS and SaaS offerings in the cloud, mostly mostly in Azure, a little bit in AWS, using very, small services using, like, some of the functions in Azure along with, like, a front end. It's a very low cost way of creating, like, a a web application semi quickly. Yeah. And then, of course, everything you can do with containers these days in even you can even wrap Azure functions now in containers. They're so handy. And running in, like, Linux Linux boxes, you don't even have to stand up Windows boxes anymore. It's always I mean, it's been around for a while now. It's it's gaining more traction these days by more companies, which is good, I think. Yeah. For sure. I think it's it's funny you mentioned that too because I think for the side projects and and just for these, like, you know, self applications or learning on the side, that's actually how we hear a lot of developers in our community find out about about Directus, about us. Right? Like, open source technology. It's like, hey. Let me try this for a side project. And then all of a sudden, at some point, their their business or their company has a need that it's like, oh, this might be perfect. I've been using this for years on my, you know, DJ side business. Like, maybe it could apply to this organization I'm working with. So, that that's pretty cool to hear. I also just like a sidebar, I noticed you had some instruments in the back. Do you play guitar? Is that a guitar? It is a guitar. It's actually a guitar case. The guitar is in the living room. Awesome. I I, I'm not the typical dev. I, sing and play in a band. Dev rock star. I like it. Yeah. That's a very common trait. We see yeah. We see a lot of developers who you have to have side hobbies as well. I I doubt any developers, hopefully, not too many, sit in front of a computer for 18 hours a day. Though it maybe it's gaming. You know, that's a hobby too, but we find a lot of devs, play instruments. And maybe it's because instruments are kind of it's kind of like a puzzle and taking apart things and putting them together. Music is kind of like a puzzle like that as well. So is that something you can use for your Right? Still math and language and basically the same as, like, coding just in a different if in a different way. I think we have enough musicians within Directus to form a band, but maybe we do that one day. Yep. That big dev shop I worked at, there was a lot of guitar players a lot. Like, some of the some of the, director level guys, they all had, like, acoustics in their office. Yeah. I remember when I got to when I moved to San Francisco, I'd gone to the the Dropbox office, and, I think the CEO was like a drummer or guitarist or something. And they had set up 2 jam rooms where people could go and, like, they had the whole full band set up, and you can go at any time and just jam out and take out your frustration or whatever you wanna do on the drums. And, I thought that's a really cool idea. That is a very cool idea. I like that. If I worked at a physical office anymore, I would say, yeah. Let's do that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. What is there anything that you see that might you know, what are your takes on things like AI? Are there things out there that you see that have are overblown or misunderstood? You know? We hear a lot of people with different opinions on that or maybe a technology that you that other people use that you find overblown. Anything that you see on that side of the spectrum? I mean, I personally think AI is a big hype right now just like, NFTs before and then, you know, Bitcoin before. I mean, Bitcoin is still big now, but, you know, at its peak, it was ginormous, you know. Yeah. Now it's slowly coming back down to earth. NFTs have pretty much died. And AI, it's it's got its benefits. It's cool, but it's it's the way people communicate about it that's, I think, wrong. It's it's not actual AI, like the definition. It can't think by itself. It's just large language Yeah. Large language models. It's just taking it from a very big dictionary and guessing what it should be based on a bunch of other texts that it has in this thing. It can't actually think by itself. Yeah. And that's that's the one thing people get all crazy about, like, thinking it's gonna take everyone's job. Yeah. Like, sentient stuff. Yeah. It's not sentient. Yeah. Can't do that yet. Someday it probably will, but it's it's not. And that's that's the one thing. It's it's always I always find a little bit just annoying when people freak out about it. It's like it's it's not there yet. Yeah. Do you think the sentience is, like, years away, decades away? I mean, if I mean, it's hard to tell. Yeah. It's really hard to tell. I mean, it's I guess only the devs at OpenAI and Entropic and some of those others probably know, like, what the timeline looks like. Yeah. I don't even know if they're they're on the right track with that. Because, like, honestly, if they're gonna do sentience, it would have to be probably more maps like a human brain. And I don't think that's the way they're doing any of these AI model like, models. I think they're all just big dictionaries for the most part, but guess as good as mine. Yeah. So what would be some advice you give for people on your team, for example, whom you might see leadership traits in or other people who would be watching this? If somebody feels like they have the traits to be a leader obviously, you've mentioned a book that I myself have read, and that book I do think is an incredible book. Mhmm. But you've mentioned not being afraid to try things, not being afraid to fail. What is your advice to people who still might have hesitance to even try something because they are scared, Or what are some other things that you would give some advice for people looking to grow into a leadership position? The biggest thing is tell your boss. Like, communicate that with your boss. That's that's where I started. I told my boss I wanted to do these things, and they helped me get my position myself in the right place so I eventually could be moved up to a team lead and run up my run my first team. So you you really have to just not be scared to tell your boss and, like, move up that way. If you're scared to tell your boss, then maybe you're not ready to lead because you you can't be scared to do that stuff. That would be the first thing. And, after that, it would be don't be scared. Don't be afraid to fail. Like, that's the biggest thing. Like, because you're you're gonna make mistakes. You're if you especially if you're a new leader, you're just starting doing this. You're not gonna know everything off the bat. No one's perfect at this right away. It takes lots of practice. And then the last thing would just be be open to criticism and people telling you maybe that's not the best way. You have to be able to change and pivot and listen. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. That's that's such good advice actually is telling your boss, telling the people who have done that journey themselves because a good leader would want their their people underneath of them who want to progress in their careers to do be able to do that. So I don't think we've had anybody mention that, but it that is probably one of the most important things that you can do is find people who have done that journey and tell them. Get that guidance. Mhmm. Yeah. Are there still leaders that, that you had in the past that you still stay in touch with and that maybe mentor you? Or how how valuable do you think the community that you've built, you know, over over your career is is still helping you today? I've kinda lost touch with with, my first mentor I had. He ended up moving across the country. I haven't really kept in touch with him. But my peers, I definitely have. Like, my other, manager teammates that I had, actually brought a bunch of them in to work at that start up I was at. And Oh, awesome. Yeah. We had a really, really good tight team there, and I've kept in touch with a lot of the other manager friends that I've made over the years, dev managers. Yeah. And a lot of them have made it even higher than me so far. So Yeah. They're really on the way too. And, like, we all have our different opinions about to how to lead a team as well. And it's good to bounce those ideas off of them to see how they would handle the situation. What would they do different? How would they handle the communication between a problem person or someone who's a little bit or having issues? You know? Yeah. Yeah. I I think community is huge both in work and outside of work. And Pedro and I have been at 3 different companies together. Not all we didn't move every place at the same time, but we've, you know, kept in contact as well as other people at other companies I've in contact with who I feel like I can pour into them some advice, and, they can do the same for me. So I find that community is also a good answer, because Pedro and I are have been friends for a long time. So it's it's kind of good to see each other grow and encourage each other, to be able to do, you know, what we wanna do. Yeah. And a little friendly competition as well. For sure. Especially since we're both we're both in the same role, just different territories now, so that's always thrilling. Right. Yeah. We we have this East Coast, West Coast, spiff or or beef, I guess, is the right word to a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. I mean, we Cool. No. I think by you, John. Yeah. Yeah. No. I think this is this is all really good advice. Like, I mean, I'm I'm even taking some of this to to apply to myself, obviously, as, like, an aspiring, leader in a future organization. That'd be this is really awesome help, for me as well. So, hopefully, everyone watching is, taking notes and and learning from you, but we'd love to know, like, where where can people follow you if they'd like to you know, you got LinkedIn and maybe some other projects, if you wanna just take it off. You can shout out your DJ thing if you want to. Alright. For anyone in Buffalo. Yeah. To be to be fair, I've kinda wound down my DJ business over for years since I haven't had time to do it with my my jobs. Yeah. So I've kinda pushed the way the band stuff's kinda taken more. That's that's more of my thing these days. But LinkedIn, you can find me at Thomas Moreno, and I'm also on Facebook and Instagram. Same name. And, yeah, that's pretty much it. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for your time today. Everyone, go follow him. We'll put his information in our notes, but go follow him for some good wisdom. You you really gave some good advice there that I've used some of it myself and some that I also will take, into account for sure. So thanks so much for your time today, Tom. Thanks, Tom. Very much. Thanks, guys. Cheers. Bye.",[269,270,271],"5f9147ce-609f-45b2-95df-01484cebb76d","ac91458f-42c8-4901-ba2a-7cb001df3561","1703437e-f697-421d-9873-484322109e74",[],{"id":144,"number":145,"show":122,"year":146,"episodes":274},[148,149,150,151,152],{"id":138,"slug":276,"vimeo_id":277,"description":278,"tile":279,"length":280,"resources":8,"people":8,"episode_number":145,"published":281,"title":282,"video_transcript_html":283,"video_transcript_text":284,"content":8,"seo":285,"status":130,"episode_people":286,"recommendations":290,"season":291},"naz-delam","948642030","In this episode of Trace Talks, engineering leader Naz Delam shares her journey to LinkedIn, highlighting key leadership lessons she's learned along the way – from challenges of leading teams during tech layoffs to empowering teams through autonomy and ownership.\n\nNaz also offers practical advice on handling layoffs, continuous learning, and effective networking. \n\nThis episode is a MUST-LISTEN for any aspiring leaders in the tech industry.","64ce77c4-fc3c-4b5b-b344-771d6b867731",52,"2024-05-30","Naz Delam, Software Engineering Manager at LinkedIn","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, hey. It's a visit from the cat. I was hoping it would show up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I was hoping it would show up. Yeah. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Today, we have Naz. Naz, first off, congratulations on becoming a naturalized US citizen today. That's very exciting, very exciting. Sometimes I take that for granted. So it's very exciting when people I know have that happen.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, yeah, we'll we'll let you introduce yourself. Why don't you let the people know just a brief background into who you are, maybe just a brief introduction into where you are, and then we'll get into the conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon wherever you are in the world. My name is Naz. I am currently an engineering leader at LinkedIn, leading media, and, previously worked as as a engineering manager and software engineer at Netflix.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>My background to tech was very traditional, so studied bachelor and master's, in computer engineering and afterwards, systems engineering. So, yeah, it's been, 10 plus years that I am in San Francisco Bay Area, and I got my first job here right after school.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for that quick intro. As this is kind of a a a podcast focus on leadership, I figured we'd start on that leadership trend. Right now, obviously, in in tech and even starting outside of tech, there's a lot of organizational changes happening and tech layoffs and everything that's, you know, kind of on the front the front of everyone's mind.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I guess let's let's kinda start off on, an interesting take. You know, what what are some of the challenges that you see in today's market, in today's, environment being a leadership at a company like LinkedIn in in in in a tech, you know, a tech world where there's a lot of instability and uncertainty?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's that's a great question. Unstability and uncertainty. Being comfortable with both of those and making those a norm, I guess that's the biggest change that we are seeing. And to frame it better, maybe it's just being more comfortable with a lot of change as it's coming your way and be more flexible to perform, knowing all of these uncertainties around you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, as a leader, it's it's very hard sometimes to motivate the team and uplevel engineers when you are in this situation, an industry that everyone are hesitant to put their 100% in. So how do you do that? How do you motivate people? Well, you know, things around you are so chaotic. People are not sure if they're gonna get laid off or not.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There is not more of certainty to the mission of the company. I guess, like, couple of things we are doing as a company is being very transparent with engineers if we have layoffs or not. So we are very clear that we don't have layoffs currently. If we know there's more layoffs, we'll let everyone know. So people will rest assure that there's no surprises.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think it's been happening mostly in a lot of big takes as a surprise, which just has to change for people. It needs to be very more transparent.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That's that's a good point. And I think that, like, you know, especially at start ups and smaller companies, these things can turn on a dime on people, especially when, you know, maybe the company isn't doing so well and people get shocked. And in those environments, I've seen a lot of managers and and colleagues get together and at least share information so that they can prepare for those next steps. Is that something that you've seen happen before?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, how would you recommend the first step if you do get laid off? What that first step is in finding that new position is is, like, would you recommend applying to a bunch of, you know, jobs that you're interested in or really reaching out to that network?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I will recommend take a 2 day off for yourself and do a self reflection. I've been through a layoff. So my last job at Netflix, I was laid off. And, I was on both sides of the coin, and seen both sides. So it's it's hard to get laid off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's never easy, especially if you're performing and you're a great engineer and you're really asking yourself questions why. You know, I have dedicated to this amount of time to this company mission. I have put my all 100% in to develop features. I cared for our users, and now you're telling me to go. And this is not a great feeling for anybody.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I would say the first thing you do is just taking time off and self reflect and try to understand that this is not you, and try to think about your strengths. So what are the things that I'm great at? Because a lot of times when things happen, I see people start to blame themselves and really focusing on shortcomings. These are the things I don't have. Maybe that's why I got laid off because maybe I wasn't great at this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Oh, how can I find a job now? I'm not great at that. But instead of that, try to be focusing on your strength and see the things that you are getting hired for at the current role and then what are the values that you can take into the next role and next company. And, you know, I coach a lot of engineers nowadays, and I always even say to my team, my direct reports that you're not bound to any company. Your career is you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So when you go to a company, don't bound yourself to a company specifically. Think longer term about your career and know that layoff can happen anytime. So you enter a company. You do your best. You're bringing value with your talent.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If that's an exit, then that's a goodbye in in in different form, and you're taking those values and strengths to another company and bring more value for more people around the world. And that's not the end of your career journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah. And Yeah. Go ahead, John.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I've that brings up a good point, and I'll I'll branch us into more of some questions around your leadership style because I I was watching a podcast that you were on previously this morning, and you mentioned something really interesting. You said you don't wanna be a leader on a team of followers. You wanna be a leader on a team of leaders. And so what what's some of the advice in the in the typical regular day to day that you provide to your team?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? Because it sounds like you want to train your team to be self sufficient, hire smart people who can solve problems, and you wanna lead people who are leaders, which in the end makes you a more valuable employee anyway. So what are some of those other values that you have as a leader? Number 1, leading a team of leaders, but what are some other things that you train your team, some values that you train your team to have so that they're just a more valuable employee in general?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Mhmm. I wouldn't call it a valuable employee. I would call them call them great engineers, who can go to any any company or even build their own products. Yeah. That would that was a concept I, read a book called turn the ship around.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's just an amazing leadership book, and, it talks about, how do you empower your team to make decisions on on their own. And that's so true. And it's a very easy statement, but it's not easy in practice. There's a lot of things required for that to be able to do that for your team. Autonomy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, how do you, as a leader, get all the information to the team that they need? How do you onboard them onto the mission vision? How do you take them to the front lines, how do you get them areas of ownership. And at the same time, as you are in the back of the things, they're also accountable for their work because you don't wanna leave everyone and go. Not everyone feel accountable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>People sometimes just leave things, and they don't follow-up. So how do they be very proactive, and feel ownership of their area? So I think, like, the most important thing is if the person thinks and feels that they are creating the impact and the impact is visible, they feel more ownership to putting in the work. So for me, also, how do I recognize this engineer? How do I shed light on their work in different forums?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Let's say, like, if if I like, it's a upper leadership type of forum. How do I present their work? How do I have them come and demo and show their work? So they feel they own it, and they feel the impact and importance of their work. And for me, not all the projects have the huge, huge impact.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So how do you actually empower engineers to feel that sense of ownership even on projects which is like migration? And, I think for us is whenever we wanna do something, we wanna think about the why of doing it, and it's one of LinkedIn's engineering principles. We need to have a very strong why. If you have an initiative, you have an idea why are you wanna do this. And if that why is very strong, that correlates to impact.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It means there is an impact. And if there is an impact and if I'm as a leader being able to give all the credit to the person who's doing the work, showcase all the light on that person, you know, and then really reward them based on their impact that they're having. They will feel the sense of ownership, and they actually execute pretty well. So that's what it says in that book is that also in addition to this, give them all the knowledge they need to perform and, have them make mistakes. I think that's one of the scariest things as a leader to leave the team to make mistakes, and it needs to be controlled mistakes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So you you need to know when you can leave like an engineer. You know what's the right solution is, but you're not saying that. You you have them take their path. You have them make mistakes, and you have them learn from those. And a lot of time when people become managers newly, they try to control that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? They try to make sure everything is done right on the team, and there's no area of mistake. But mistakes are very crucial for people development. So as a leader, we need to be able to have those controlled risk so people can make mistakes on areas that's it's not gonna fall apart.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I love where you talked about sense of ownership, and I think we've talked about that a few times on this podcast. Obviously, everyone feeling like they're making an impact, feeling like they're driving themselves and the organization forward. But on the flip side of that, you know, especially in today's market, like, we were talking about with the layoffs and the reorganizations that can sometimes happen at that level that it almost doesn't matter the contribution that you made. Like, how do you coach someone through that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Does that bring down morale if they see maybe half their, you know, half their colleagues have been laid off and now they're still at the company? But they're you know, they recognize that sense of ownership, and they're like, well, they didn't do anything wrong either. How do you keep morale high? How do you coach people through that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I think one of the important things is to acknowledge all the emotions. Right? Is that it is hard to be in that situation. We had a situation like that last year where I think a bunch of our engineers were laid off late last year. And it is it is hard.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's scary. And, you know, as a leader, you need to acknowledge that. When you go in a room and say, well, everything is butterfly and sunflowers, and we're good, so let's get to work, people doesn't feel like that. Instead, get to a room and say, yes. I feel very bad today.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I, myself, am scared. I, myself, am not happy. I need actually some time to get my, you know, self up and running to be able to execute at my current job as a leader. So take that time too. It is heartbreaking to see people go around us, and I think as you're acknowledging that emotions, people feel more safe.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>People feel that they're in an environment that their leaders feel the same as they are, and no one is trying to, you know, hide things from them or display things in a different way as they are. And that transparency, even on the feelings level, will help people navigate these situations. And be very frank with people. I mean, this is an environment we are in at tech where layoffs are happening. It's been happening forever.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This is not something new. When you sign a contract with a company, you sign that you can exit anytime, and they can let you go anytime. And this is a norm, and I don't think people should really bound themselves to these things and things like this is the end, and all my contributions are gone. This is not the case. Even for people, the they got laid off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There have been many instances that we help them find their new role, so we are there for them. This wasn't something they have done. They are great engineers. There were many instances that I referred them to different places. We tried our best to find them new places, and, you know, business is business, and I think that's for people to understand.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If CEOs of companies getting laid off, you know, it's it's okay for employees to get laid off. So it's it's a norm. I guess, like, in that situation, just to summarize, just be very honest with people. Talk about their feelings. Acknowledge.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So there is the 7 stages of grief that we all know. You have to walk your team through that 7 stages. And don't do that in one day. Day 1, every stage in one day, and then in the 7th day, people are back to their norm. If you're actually acknowledging the emotion, give them time to come back.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Take that anger. Create spaces for people to talk to you, and have them feel safe by you opening up yourself as a leader and talking about how you feel about this. People continue to open up and just put out everything that they're feeling. There would be anger. There would be resentment.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There would be lack of trust for a while. The morale will get impact, and there is nothing we can do about it. That's the reality of the layoffs. And the companies who are doing that, they know that it will have an impact, Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Be prepared for productivity. Yeah. Productivity to drop, morale to drop, but but, you know, maybe after a few weeks, it returns back to the norm if you can manage through it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Be prepared because you can expect your team to perform the same way they've been. It's it's grief.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You you know, human beings, we can perform the same way. It's it's exactly the last process.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's take a step back in your journey because I'm always curious how people find their way to leadership, roles that they've had. And I believe part of your story is going through some of these transitions at previous companies that you're in. So I guess let's kind of take take it back to the beginning of your engineering journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, what were you doing? What were some of those roles that you had? And what does that transition from an individual contributor to leadership look like\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: for you? Sure. I wrote a blog post on this as my story called transition to leadership like a butterfly, if if you anyone wanna read, in detail. But I guess I started my engineering journey, like, years back as a back end engineer. So I was doing Java.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That time was Spring, Khybernet, all these technologies, and I had a lot of pivots. So I'm very curious person, and I wanted to pick up different things. So I pivoted from back end to front end. And then and decide, I did things like machine learning. I worked on self driving cars, did a little bit of AI here and there, studied system engineering while I was working, worked a little bit on NASA.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So so many different branches I had, where I was an engineer. So I wasn't only doing my work. I was very active even outside of my work. And then during that time, as I was exploring different things, was I got this role to becoming a software architect, which was one of the most interesting and fruitful roles I had as an engineer where I could work on, like, a system end to end and work with so many amazing people who had many, many years of experience. So as an engineer, I definitely had experience with all over, all the technologies that we have, across the stack.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think that made me very, versatile and being able to shift very quickly from, like, back end to front end or using different technologies and, bringing systems upgraded systems and having system understanding. How do you build complex systems that are highly aligned and loosely coupled? So how do you, like, handle risk? How do you test very well? So, that's part of my engineering journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But things change. You know? As I started, I was very more technical, and then all of the softer skills getting added as requirement for my role. Right? How do I run a meeting effectively?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And as I grew more and more, I had to deal with more and more people, and that people side got way more interesting for me. So, I talk about my library when I, when I write that blog post where, initially, most of my books were technical. When I started my engineering journey, you can find my library from a programming books. And then as this continues, there's, like, addition of softer skills book getting added to my library. And I would see myself reading those books more more than my technical books, and sometimes I ask myself, like, am I doing the right thing?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Am I, like, going away from my path and doing something new? But, I could say, like, my mindset as my library kind of get transitioned to the people side of it. And over time, I find that more interesting because if I can enable and empower people, and I've been told many times that this is your strength, If I can do that, I would have way more impact than just running myself and executing myself.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Mhmm. Do\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: you find that curiosity that you you found for evolving, you know, soft skills and and newer technologies? That that's definitely a theme that we've heard from almost everyone that we've talked to on this podcast, the curiosity to try new things and then also not be afraid to fail when you're trying new things, but just that curiosity in general. Do you find that to be a crucial a crucial trait to have for a leader? And if so, is that something that you you try and cultivate with your, oh, hey. Visit from the cat.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I was hoping he'd show up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I'm gonna show up. Show up. Yeah. Is that a trait that you is is that a trait that you cultivate in people that you're leading who who also show that they wanna be leaders? If they don't have that trait or if they do have it, is that something that you cultivate with them?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I mean, people have different personalities. That's the thing I've learned, and not everyone wanna branch this many branches, to be honest. Some people like to go in-depth in one thing, and they stay in one thing, and they they, like, create expertise. Some people like me, they they just like to explore, and they gets maybe bored. I I would like I feel whenever I feel comfortable, and I learn something and I know I'm good at it right now and I'm comfortable with it, now I start to, like, seek something else.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I challenge myself constantly. Not everyone is like that, and it's okay, not to be like that. I think people have very, very different personalities. And, if they are the opposite of the spectrum, doesn't mean that they're not successful, and they can't be greatly less. But for me, specifically, my personality was in that spectrum of, like, I I don't stay in one zone when I'm comfortable, and I'm constantly want to learn something new.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Every year, I pick a new technology to learn out of nowhere. Like, this year, I was looking at quantum computing. Is it related to my job? No. It's it's like out of nowhere I do learn it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's interesting to me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Is there any re that's a that's a hefty, hefty topic to start learning. Is there a reason you chose that, or you just you saw it, you had almost no idea what it was, and you just wanted to start exploring it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Exactly. I saw it. I had no idea. I read things about it, how it solves problem, like, developing new drugs and proteins and working on human DNA, and I'm like, oh my god. This is this is super interesting.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How does this work? And I started, like, listening to YouTube videos and then reading books about, like, quantum mechanics. So, yeah, I think it's just a curiosity and me wanting to pushing myself constantly out of my comfort zone and challenge myself. I feel that I'm if I feel like I'm in one place, I feel I'm stagnating. So it's it's all about personalities.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, we have different personality traits. I think my my my personality, I'm more of, like, an alpha personality where I have, like, very extreme growth mindset. But people have, like, different spectrums. Some people are very focused on one thing, and they're really great at it, and they don't go out of it. So I think that's totally fine to be in a different spectrum.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>As long as you're growing, it should be totally fine.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's also a future it sounds like it's also a future focus too. Right? Curious about what comes next. I mean, people studying people have been studying, obviously, AI and large language models for, you know, years already.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We just, as the public, come to see it now. So maybe, like you're saying, quantum computing is that next frontier in 10, 20 years that sort of becomes more more mainstream.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So, yeah, that that future focus is is interesting. I heard somewhere that, like, I guess at some point, quantum computers can essentially break all encrypted passwords that we have today. So it it could be an interesting problem to solve for tomorrow. Right? Like, how do we secure devices if not with, you know, with passwords and things?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that one thing that it was around 2015 when I went to ACM of ours. I don't know if anyone familiar. Association of Computer Machinery is, like, one of the most prestigious computer science, association, and this award is, like, a Nobel Prize for scientists. So that year, I think, was Bernice Lee who invented the Internet who got the award, and it was at the award ceremony.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there was a committee who is protecting our data. And it was very interesting to me because all of our data now is binary. And with quantum computing, be the future, and it's not transferrable, how are how are our data gonna be read with quantum machines? Who's gonna protect it? Who's gonna keep a repository of all of our data?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it was surprising to me that there is a whole committee who's responsible for taking care of our data, you know, as a society. And, they're thinking about all of these things. It's like, how do we transfer this data to quantum later on? So people can look at their images, or look at their binary data. But, yeah, if when you go to these places and you see people forward thinking these many levels, you'll be amazed to hear, like, there are people actually thinking about this thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. And I also assume one thing I've heard you talk about in other podcasts as well is networking, especially as you just wanna become a better a better engineer, better employee, networking with people. And I'm sure those types of events also introduce you to people with really interesting things that they say and and even new topics that you can then, 5 years later, start to investigate yourself. And so what's the for for this podcast and for the people listening here, what is the value of networking that you, you know, find yourself and that you train for or or you you pass on to your mentees as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a good question. Well, a couple of things. First of all, don't network because you want something from people. Network before you want something from people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So beat those relationships before it comes to, like, looking for a job or, you know, changing your role. And, I always call it vertical and horizontal net networking. So when you are at a role in in your company, you need both of them. So you start the first three months of your role to 1st 6 months doing vertical networking. And by vertical, I mean your team, your manager, your skip manager, and everyone in the chain, and your close partners, so anyone you work with day to day base.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So build relationship with those people. But after that 6 months, you start to do horizon networking, which means going outside your team to other teams that you don't know about. A lot of companies have so many tools. Like, I remember when I was at Netflix, there was this coffee chat where you could register, and you get randomly, matched with someone across the company and you could get a coffee with. At LinkedIn, we have, like, similar tools that you can go in and, you know, chat with people across the company.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If your company doesn't have 1, be the leader and build 1, so people can chat with each other. Or just simply, you know, ping people for, like, a 15 minute coffee chat to learn about them, introduce yourself, and, just connect with them. And then later on, you will be surprised how those people would show up in your journey, in your career. Not everyone have to give you a job or refer you. They will inspire you in so many ways as you're networking with them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You may have a question or you may get an idea and you can run by them or they would just be your advocates. They know you somehow. And when there is an opportunity, they remember you, and they put your name up on the table. So that's that's a thing. Always remember.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Don't forget that horizontal networking. People usually go to companies, and they just rely on the vertical networking. They don't know really anyone across the company, and it's similar outside. As I mentioned, your career is not bound to a company, so think the same thing. Vertical networking in your area, horizontal networking outside your area, network with recruiters in different companies, network with people outside your field.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>LinkedIn right now make it super easy for everybody. I think 10 years was their LinkedIn, but it wasn't as active as now where you could find people this easily. Now we are getting to the area of conferences being back again after COVID. So attended conferences, meetups, and chat with people, learn about them, and they will learn about you too. So that's a that's a good thing to be at.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there is so many things nowadays. I mean, you see all of these mentorship platforms that's showing up, which wasn't there 10 years ago when we started. That's a great way of networking, getting a mentor. It's a next level because that person is investing in you. And if someone is invest in you, they're way more willingly advocating for you later on than someone who just you meet in a conference.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So go on on these platforms. You know, there's a ton of them across the industry. Maybe get to the session with different mentors, people you aspire to be like them or people you they're ahead of you and you wanna get there. Learn how do they get there and ask for their advice. And then later on, when you build these relationships and talk to so many different people, they will invest in you and advocate for you whenever you are in your career.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. You mentioned LinkedIn was a good resource for that. Obviously, you know, that's bringing the entire network together and having making it easier for people to just reach out. In the past, like, I found it maybe awkward or or scary almost to reach out to people for advice. Like, what would you when you're reaching out to someone that doesn't know you at all completely cold and wanting to network with them, what are some tips that you would recommend on that initial sort of cold message?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I won't really do that. Right? I won't reach out to someone I don't know, and I don't advise that. That's why I'm saying, like, network before you actually need an advice, like, have a really broad people that you know. I won't send a cold message to someone and say, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I need an advice, and I know need 30 minutes of your time. People are super busy, especially people who are in better stages that can advise you. Right? Go get a mentor. Right now, there is so many ways of doing that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's all of these platforms. There's Play Doh, Mentor Cruise, MentorMe. I mean, there's so many of them out there that you can find these people on those platforms actually offering you time. So, go find those platforms and find those people, and that's respecting their time and also going there professionally and getting the advice you need. And that will build trust between you and that person because your mentor is now trusting you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you can send the cold message after you have couple of sessions with this person and say, you know what? I need an advice on this. What do I do? And they will always there for you. Like, I'll tell all my mentees, like, I'm your all time advocate.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Anytime I mentor, I'll be there for them, like, through their career. So, yes, it can happen. People, like, send them cold messages and say, hey. Can you make a referral? And I'm like, I I don't even know you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that makes me question your judgment because how would you want me someone who actually doesn't know you at all to refer you to a role versus someone who's coming in and say, look. I'm looking for a job, and these are the things I wanna get better at. I have a good understanding of myself. Can you advise me how can I find a job? And then at that stage, when I have couple of chats with that person, may mock interview them, I know how their level and how they are.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I actually myself refer them to places that I think it's a great fit for them. So it happens very naturally when you build the relationship the right way. I am not a believer in those cold messages. Sometimes they work, but, I mostly believe in building relationships that are strong with people that have really good foundation and trust.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. That's that's really good advice. I think it's crucial these days to kind of build those are you when you open a position, are Are you when you open a position, are you first thinking of people who have built that type of a relationship with you, whether they're, you know, someone who would fit the position? And then, are you reaching out to your network of people saying, do you know somebody who might fill this position or might fit this position? I guess, which one or both?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, do you look for both of those types of sources for people when you're scaling your teams?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. So I try to be fair because I don't wanna only look at the people I know and advocate for them, only because I wanna give opportunity to people who I don't know and they can apply to the role. So we I usually build a pool of people where 10 to 20% of them are people I know and I know it's a good fit for this role, and the rest are opportunity for other people to apply to the role. And I take a look at those resumes too. But because I know these people, because I invested them, when a role pops up, I have them top of my mind, and I ping them that this is a role that's popped up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If you're interested, apply. But I'm not giving them extra benefits as other people. But the fact that I'm pinging them as a hiring manager and I'm saying apply, they will get an interview pretty easier than people who are applying to the roles, especially in this market. You know a role is popping up in 2 hours. There's 100 of applicants.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, if you have that relationships that people know you, top of their mind, that's the key to get a role is that people who advocate for you and put your name on the table without you wanting that. And that's a huge key to success in the in your career is that building those relationship that can result in this. So whenever I open a role, I have people on top of my mind that I know they're looking for a role and a great fit for this role. And, and I really do that because I know it benefit their role and benefit them. So I don't really refer people who are I don't think they're a good fit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, you know, they've been people that their life changed because of that. I mean, they get into really big tech companies. I had a mentee who was a waiter, and, afterwards, he got hired at Meta, and that's changed his life. So many of these stories, people who are just entering tech and, you know, it's really hard to find your first job and build relationships like this with people across the industry who can refer them and advocate for it. Them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So it's a it's a both mix up pool because fairness is super important when I hire. I wanna make sure I give, like, opportunity to all type of people, be as, you know, inclusive as possible to, like, all people from different backgrounds. Also, look at my team and say, like, okay. Is my team diverse enough? You know, what I'm needing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, do I have enough women at my team? I don't want, like, to having 1 woman in the room or 1 man in room to feel, like, isolated. I want everyone to feel belonging. So looking at the gaps on my team and see, like, what are those gaps that I'm looking for to fill in and really building that diverse pool of people, who are coming in to interview.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And on the taking it from from the hiring side, I'm I'm curious putting you as the candidate. I know you were presented with options, you know, to maybe go to YouTube or Google and and LinkedIn, and, obviously, you you ultimately chose LinkedIn. When looking for a place to go, like, what was that deciding factor that made you choose LinkedIn and and framing that as advice for people who are listening? You know, if they're presented with so many options or so many different paths, like, how do you choose?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Mhmm. So, the framework I walk my mentees through is we do have a value table. Before you actually start job searching, you put together maximum five values you're looking into the next role. What are the things you really want in your next role? Example, for me, like, people mattered.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I wanna work in a culture that people come first. Growth mattered. I wanted to work in in a company that supports my growth. You know, technology mattered. I wanted to be a cutting edge technology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Product mattered for me. I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on before, and there are a couple of other things that I have in my value table. And whenever I am interviewing a company, and I always say that interview is a two way assessment. There are things you're assessing too. These values are the things you have to assess.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Ask the recruiter. Ask the hiring manager in your first interview. What is the growth framework on your team? Who was the last person who got promoted on your team? How does promotion happens?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How do you support an engineer who falls behind? How do you onboard people onto new team? You know, all of these questions you can ask to assess how good is that company and that team role for you in terms of your value. Ask about the product if it matters. Like, how old is the product?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Is it a new thing? Why are we is this a bet? You know? Is it something that we're just gonna do right now and just, disappear, like, a year from now, or is this something the company wanna invest in long term? If these things matter for you, be prepared to ask these questions because a lot of people go into roles blindly just because it's at a good company, and then they're not happy there afterwards because they're not assessing in their interview, their role in the company.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then when you have these values and you're interviewing, I give a score from 1 to 10. 10 means they're great at it. 1, they're very poor. And, then when you're reaching to the offer stage, like top 3, top 2, interview that you're doing, you can see the differences. So, for example, for me, between YouTube and LinkedIn, it was a product.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on, and for me, YouTube was a streaming again. And I'm not a person to go in-depth. As you know, my personality, I love the breadth. I love to get things which is new. I never work on a social media platform like LinkedIn.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that was a a factor like, one of the biggest factor on that table that I picked LinkedIn over YouTube. So if you have that values, it's easy to to know, like, which one I I wanna go to and which value I wanna compromise, which one is compromiseable for me, which one is nice. For me, work life balance is not compromiseable. It's a value. I do a lot of things outside work, and work is not my only thing in life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, I wanted a company that, you know, I don't have to work 247 because I really don't admire that type of environment. So I think it's toxic. So what are those values and which one you cannot compromise and assessing those over your interview then when you're at a offer stage? You you don't have a hard time to know which one do you have to pick.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I I think I saw that you last end of towards the end of last year ran a marathon, and so those types of hobbies, I think, are pretty important. You know? Pedro and I play music music, and, I think Pedro is a coffee aficionado, so he loves making coffee.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I think it's important to have those things outside of work to to make sure you stay balanced. It sounds like you have several ways that you evolve yourself. You know, you you said you mentioned reading books and just being curious and learning new technologies. You probably also have your own mentor who you who you get advice from or several mentors. So is it is it hard, or do you just find it come naturally to still make sure that you're growing as a as a person?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Do those does that time come easy, or do you have to make sure that you, you know, spend a couple hours a week making sure that you're growing as a leader as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: That's a great question. I feel that's come naturally for me. It's not like I mostly build habits versus, like, I have to read, like, 3 hours per week. It's not like that. It comes as a habit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You all know the book, Atomic Habits. Right? It's like stacking things and building habits and systems. For me, mostly, it's systems in my life. And you can't have all of it at the same time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, you can't go to the gym and read books and be great at your work and get a mentor and run projects. It's not possible. You need to have balance long term, but in short term, you may not have a balance. So let's say if you if you wanna get better at something and you have, like, 3 books to finish, you may have to cut off from your gym time or running time or whatever you're doing at on the side for, like, a week. And then a week after, you know that what is cutting off was my running, and now I'm done with this book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So this is the things I'm gonna prioritize. I'm pulling it back up this week. I'm gonna focus on it more. So in long run, there is a balance between all of these things you're doing. But in short run, you prioritize between these things because you can't have all of these things together.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you build systems for yourself. Systems of learning. What's your system of learning? Is that books right now is so integrated into my life. It's something that, you know, I usually read in the morning when I wake up or if it's a book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Even learning how to read a book pretty fast is super important and summarize it so you can refer to it later on. But building that systems that actually can help you. For me, Fridays is my self reflection days. It's a day I have a session in the morning with my mentor. And after that session, I self reflect on, like, how what did I do this week?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What are the areas I did really well? What are the top things top five things I did at my work? Then that top five things goes to 1 on 1 next week with my manager. And this is kind of what we call it managing up. Like, how do you how do you manage up, and how do you tell your manager and your escape what are you doing, and it's getting harder as you're going higher and higher.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that's that's a way of me managing up by taking that 5 outlines and putting in my 1 on 1 doc, and then self reflecting of what are the things I have to do next week, looking at my team structure, how everyone is doing, did I capture what they did greatly this week? I do that for my team too, like, every individual on the team. I have a running doc that I say these are the things they did really well this week. So when it comes to their performance review, I am very detailed for advocating for them, for every engineer, and I'm taking all that recognition in. What are the feedbacks I have to give them?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm very proactive on giving my direct reports feedback. I will let it sit. If someone is not doing something very well or there is there is a gap that they can do better, it would be right away. Every week, I'm thinking about their performance and how they did. So it won't be a surprise.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? There are some managers that suddenly come after, like, a year, and they say, you didn't do all of these things. And, that's hinder trust. The trust is broken at that stage. So the more honest and the more periodic and the smaller these pieces of feedbacks are and very targeted, the better those those people can grow.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So Friday, my system of self reflection into my life, plan of next week, How's my month look like? Am I having enough fun? How's my gym is going? How's my workouts? Relationship wise, am I spending time with people I love?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, sometimes I'm so much slanted at work. I forget about my friends. I'm like, next week, I'm gonna set time with my friends. Next week, I'm gonna spend more time talking to my mom. There are, like, 4 categories in my life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's career, which is one that you all have. It's love and relationships, like you being very socially, satisfied with, like, going out with people, your best friends, your family, your close relatives, spending time with them. For me, financial life matters. I'm doing on that. Am I, like, on track with my goals?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then, health, like, in terms of am I drinking enough water? Am I a happy person? How's my mental health? Do I need, like, some of the weeks that I'm very exhausted? I usually go to a lighter sort of workout.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I'm like, okay. This week, I'm gonna go do yoga instead of running because I want less intensity in my life. So how are you assessing that and then having that, like, long term balance? There is this book also called design your life where it talks about these categories, which is something I took from this book, And then, having that categories help me to balance. So I measure every category every week, and I see how I'm doing and which category requires attention.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I prioritize a week after.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I like that. I have to check out that book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I'm I am writing that down because, there's definitely weeks or several weeks in a row where I might neglect 1 or 2 of those categories for sure. So that's that's a good book to write down.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Awesome. So, yeah, I think, we're coming close to time here for you know, thank you, Naz, for your for your time. I think maybe we could wrap it up with, you know, what's some advice that you would give to anyone who's listening, maybe something top of mind that's, you know, come across your mind over the last week or 2, that you'd like to just kinda pass along? And then where can everyone find you and and follow your journey?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure. Oh, that's a hard question. I mean, something that has been top of my mind. I was reading yesterday a quote about someone who lays off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think it was a company called Clarify, and she wrote couple of points I shared on my LinkedIn as opposed to where things I've learned from layoffs. And one of it is, like, really thinking about how do you not bound to one job and then have some back ups, make sure that that happens. The other was, like, really thinking about yourself and getting yourself back up. And, one point that was funny, and a lot of people didn't agree, is that people are there for you when you get laid off. But the reality is they're not.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Everyone having their own job, and you can expect that you're getting laid off and everyone is there for you. And now your friends are taking you to their companies. I mean, they do their best, but it's not the case. So be prepared. I mean, be prepared.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Have your resume ready all the time. I mean, don't just get on your resume when you need a job. Your resume is a reflection of you, and it needs to be ready and updated. Your LinkedIn needs to be ready and updated with latest things you do. And then always and always have 1 or 2 interview per year.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What are you doing with the company? Even if you're at a place that you're comfortable, always, always interview. You are you'll be at the ready state all the time. Also, you learn about the market and what's going on, in other companies when you interview with them, and it's a it's a way of also networking. So when you interview with hiring managers and they get to know you, later on when they have a role and if you perform there in that interview, they're gonna they're gonna reach out to you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So be ready, before something happens is actually the key in this market. And knowing that your work is not bound to a company. You're taking your work to different companies' missions and vision and enabling part of their journey as a really amazing engineer. And, none of us have to be in a place forever. At least in tech, it's not the case.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Awesome. Yeah. I I think I think you also once mentioned sorry to sorry to jump in there. I think you also once mentioned around the interviewing process. You also just received feedback feedback from those people about how you present on a camera or your answers, or you get some valuable feedback from those interviews as well.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. And be very transparent when you do those interviews. Like, I'm not actively looking, but this looks like a good opportunity. I wanna I wanna assess and learn more about this company. Why not doing an interview?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And putting yourself in those situations more often makes you more comfortable. You'll be more confident. So if people wanna find me, I'm on LinkedIn, nazdaalum. Also, you can find all my handles on my website, nazda dev, and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about anything I mentioned. Hopefully, we can have those books listed, John, somewhere, so people can find it on-site reference.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely gonna say I'm gonna keep in contact with you just to see what books you're reading. Awesome, Naz. Well, yeah, I I really I personally found a lot of value from this conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's a lot of things that, you mentioned that I just tend to forget over time, and so I definitely found some great value out of this conversation. Everyone, go follow her on LinkedIn. Pedro's battery is exhausted.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: My battery is exhausted, so my camera died, but I am here. Thank you, Nez. Thanks so much for your time. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Thank you, everyone. Thank you for having me. It was great.\u003C/p>","Oh, hey. It's a visit from the cat. I was hoping it would show up. Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher. Yeah. I was hoping it would show up. Yeah. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks. Today, we have Naz. Naz, first off, congratulations on becoming a naturalized US citizen today. That's very exciting, very exciting. Sometimes I take that for granted. So it's very exciting when people I know have that happen. But, yeah, we'll we'll let you introduce yourself. Why don't you let the people know just a brief background into who you are, maybe just a brief introduction into where you are, and then we'll get into the conversation. Absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon wherever you are in the world. My name is Naz. I am currently an engineering leader at LinkedIn, leading media, and, previously worked as as a engineering manager and software engineer at Netflix. My background to tech was very traditional, so studied bachelor and master's, in computer engineering and afterwards, systems engineering. So, yeah, it's been, 10 plus years that I am in San Francisco Bay Area, and I got my first job here right after school. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for that quick intro. As this is kind of a a a podcast focus on leadership, I figured we'd start on that leadership trend. Right now, obviously, in in tech and even starting outside of tech, there's a lot of organizational changes happening and tech layoffs and everything that's, you know, kind of on the front the front of everyone's mind. So I guess let's let's kinda start off on, an interesting take. You know, what what are some of the challenges that you see in today's market, in today's, environment being a leadership at a company like LinkedIn in in in in a tech, you know, a tech world where there's a lot of instability and uncertainty? Yeah. That's that's a great question. Unstability and uncertainty. Being comfortable with both of those and making those a norm, I guess that's the biggest change that we are seeing. And to frame it better, maybe it's just being more comfortable with a lot of change as it's coming your way and be more flexible to perform, knowing all of these uncertainties around you. So, as a leader, it's it's very hard sometimes to motivate the team and uplevel engineers when you are in this situation, an industry that everyone are hesitant to put their 100% in. So how do you do that? How do you motivate people? Well, you know, things around you are so chaotic. People are not sure if they're gonna get laid off or not. There is not more of certainty to the mission of the company. I guess, like, couple of things we are doing as a company is being very transparent with engineers if we have layoffs or not. So we are very clear that we don't have layoffs currently. If we know there's more layoffs, we'll let everyone know. So people will rest assure that there's no surprises. And I think it's been happening mostly in a lot of big takes as a surprise, which just has to change for people. It needs to be very more transparent. Yeah. That's that's a good point. And I think that, like, you know, especially at start ups and smaller companies, these things can turn on a dime on people, especially when, you know, maybe the company isn't doing so well and people get shocked. And in those environments, I've seen a lot of managers and and colleagues get together and at least share information so that they can prepare for those next steps. Is that something that you've seen happen before? And, how would you recommend the first step if you do get laid off? What that first step is in finding that new position is is, like, would you recommend applying to a bunch of, you know, jobs that you're interested in or really reaching out to that network? I will recommend take a 2 day off for yourself and do a self reflection. I've been through a layoff. So my last job at Netflix, I was laid off. And, I was on both sides of the coin, and seen both sides. So it's it's hard to get laid off. It's never easy, especially if you're performing and you're a great engineer and you're really asking yourself questions why. You know, I have dedicated to this amount of time to this company mission. I have put my all 100% in to develop features. I cared for our users, and now you're telling me to go. And this is not a great feeling for anybody. So I would say the first thing you do is just taking time off and self reflect and try to understand that this is not you, and try to think about your strengths. So what are the things that I'm great at? Because a lot of times when things happen, I see people start to blame themselves and really focusing on shortcomings. These are the things I don't have. Maybe that's why I got laid off because maybe I wasn't great at this. Oh, how can I find a job now? I'm not great at that. But instead of that, try to be focusing on your strength and see the things that you are getting hired for at the current role and then what are the values that you can take into the next role and next company. And, you know, I coach a lot of engineers nowadays, and I always even say to my team, my direct reports that you're not bound to any company. Your career is you. So when you go to a company, don't bound yourself to a company specifically. Think longer term about your career and know that layoff can happen anytime. So you enter a company. You do your best. You're bringing value with your talent. If that's an exit, then that's a goodbye in in in different form, and you're taking those values and strengths to another company and bring more value for more people around the world. And that's not the end of your career journey. That's true. Yeah. And Yeah. Go ahead, John. Yeah. I've that brings up a good point, and I'll I'll branch us into more of some questions around your leadership style because I I was watching a podcast that you were on previously this morning, and you mentioned something really interesting. You said you don't wanna be a leader on a team of followers. You wanna be a leader on a team of leaders. And so what what's some of the advice in the in the typical regular day to day that you provide to your team? You know? Because it sounds like you want to train your team to be self sufficient, hire smart people who can solve problems, and you wanna lead people who are leaders, which in the end makes you a more valuable employee anyway. So what are some of those other values that you have as a leader? Number 1, leading a team of leaders, but what are some other things that you train your team, some values that you train your team to have so that they're just a more valuable employee in general? Mhmm. I wouldn't call it a valuable employee. I would call them call them great engineers, who can go to any any company or even build their own products. Yeah. That would that was a concept I, read a book called turn the ship around. It's just an amazing leadership book, and, it talks about, how do you empower your team to make decisions on on their own. And that's so true. And it's a very easy statement, but it's not easy in practice. There's a lot of things required for that to be able to do that for your team. Autonomy. Like, how do you, as a leader, get all the information to the team that they need? How do you onboard them onto the mission vision? How do you take them to the front lines, how do you get them areas of ownership. And at the same time, as you are in the back of the things, they're also accountable for their work because you don't wanna leave everyone and go. Not everyone feel accountable. People sometimes just leave things, and they don't follow-up. So how do they be very proactive, and feel ownership of their area? So I think, like, the most important thing is if the person thinks and feels that they are creating the impact and the impact is visible, they feel more ownership to putting in the work. So for me, also, how do I recognize this engineer? How do I shed light on their work in different forums? Let's say, like, if if I like, it's a upper leadership type of forum. How do I present their work? How do I have them come and demo and show their work? So they feel they own it, and they feel the impact and importance of their work. And for me, not all the projects have the huge, huge impact. So how do you actually empower engineers to feel that sense of ownership even on projects which is like migration? And, I think for us is whenever we wanna do something, we wanna think about the why of doing it, and it's one of LinkedIn's engineering principles. We need to have a very strong why. If you have an initiative, you have an idea why are you wanna do this. And if that why is very strong, that correlates to impact. It means there is an impact. And if there is an impact and if I'm as a leader being able to give all the credit to the person who's doing the work, showcase all the light on that person, you know, and then really reward them based on their impact that they're having. They will feel the sense of ownership, and they actually execute pretty well. So that's what it says in that book is that also in addition to this, give them all the knowledge they need to perform and, have them make mistakes. I think that's one of the scariest things as a leader to leave the team to make mistakes, and it needs to be controlled mistakes. So you you need to know when you can leave like an engineer. You know what's the right solution is, but you're not saying that. You you have them take their path. You have them make mistakes, and you have them learn from those. And a lot of time when people become managers newly, they try to control that. Right? They try to make sure everything is done right on the team, and there's no area of mistake. But mistakes are very crucial for people development. So as a leader, we need to be able to have those controlled risk so people can make mistakes on areas that's it's not gonna fall apart. Yeah. I love where you talked about sense of ownership, and I think we've talked about that a few times on this podcast. Obviously, everyone feeling like they're making an impact, feeling like they're driving themselves and the organization forward. But on the flip side of that, you know, especially in today's market, like, we were talking about with the layoffs and the reorganizations that can sometimes happen at that level that it almost doesn't matter the contribution that you made. Like, how do you coach someone through that? Does that bring down morale if they see maybe half their, you know, half their colleagues have been laid off and now they're still at the company? But they're you know, they recognize that sense of ownership, and they're like, well, they didn't do anything wrong either. How do you keep morale high? How do you coach people through that? I think one of the important things is to acknowledge all the emotions. Right? Is that it is hard to be in that situation. We had a situation like that last year where I think a bunch of our engineers were laid off late last year. And it is it is hard. It's scary. And, you know, as a leader, you need to acknowledge that. When you go in a room and say, well, everything is butterfly and sunflowers, and we're good, so let's get to work, people doesn't feel like that. Instead, get to a room and say, yes. I feel very bad today. I, myself, am scared. I, myself, am not happy. I need actually some time to get my, you know, self up and running to be able to execute at my current job as a leader. So take that time too. It is heartbreaking to see people go around us, and I think as you're acknowledging that emotions, people feel more safe. People feel that they're in an environment that their leaders feel the same as they are, and no one is trying to, you know, hide things from them or display things in a different way as they are. And that transparency, even on the feelings level, will help people navigate these situations. And be very frank with people. I mean, this is an environment we are in at tech where layoffs are happening. It's been happening forever. This is not something new. When you sign a contract with a company, you sign that you can exit anytime, and they can let you go anytime. And this is a norm, and I don't think people should really bound themselves to these things and things like this is the end, and all my contributions are gone. This is not the case. Even for people, the they got laid off. There have been many instances that we help them find their new role, so we are there for them. This wasn't something they have done. They are great engineers. There were many instances that I referred them to different places. We tried our best to find them new places, and, you know, business is business, and I think that's for people to understand. If CEOs of companies getting laid off, you know, it's it's okay for employees to get laid off. So it's it's a norm. I guess, like, in that situation, just to summarize, just be very honest with people. Talk about their feelings. Acknowledge. So there is the 7 stages of grief that we all know. You have to walk your team through that 7 stages. And don't do that in one day. Day 1, every stage in one day, and then in the 7th day, people are back to their norm. If you're actually acknowledging the emotion, give them time to come back. Take that anger. Create spaces for people to talk to you, and have them feel safe by you opening up yourself as a leader and talking about how you feel about this. People continue to open up and just put out everything that they're feeling. There would be anger. There would be resentment. There would be lack of trust for a while. The morale will get impact, and there is nothing we can do about it. That's the reality of the layoffs. And the companies who are doing that, they know that it will have an impact, Yeah. Yeah. Be prepared for productivity. Yeah. Productivity to drop, morale to drop, but but, you know, maybe after a few weeks, it returns back to the norm if you can manage through it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Be prepared because you can expect your team to perform the same way they've been. It's it's grief. You you know, human beings, we can perform the same way. It's it's exactly the last process. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's take a step back in your journey because I'm always curious how people find their way to leadership, roles that they've had. And I believe part of your story is going through some of these transitions at previous companies that you're in. So I guess let's kind of take take it back to the beginning of your engineering journey. You know, what were you doing? What were some of those roles that you had? And what does that transition from an individual contributor to leadership look like for you? Sure. I wrote a blog post on this as my story called transition to leadership like a butterfly, if if you anyone wanna read, in detail. But I guess I started my engineering journey, like, years back as a back end engineer. So I was doing Java. That time was Spring, Khybernet, all these technologies, and I had a lot of pivots. So I'm very curious person, and I wanted to pick up different things. So I pivoted from back end to front end. And then and decide, I did things like machine learning. I worked on self driving cars, did a little bit of AI here and there, studied system engineering while I was working, worked a little bit on NASA. So so many different branches I had, where I was an engineer. So I wasn't only doing my work. I was very active even outside of my work. And then during that time, as I was exploring different things, was I got this role to becoming a software architect, which was one of the most interesting and fruitful roles I had as an engineer where I could work on, like, a system end to end and work with so many amazing people who had many, many years of experience. So as an engineer, I definitely had experience with all over, all the technologies that we have, across the stack. And I think that made me very, versatile and being able to shift very quickly from, like, back end to front end or using different technologies and, bringing systems upgraded systems and having system understanding. How do you build complex systems that are highly aligned and loosely coupled? So how do you, like, handle risk? How do you test very well? So, that's part of my engineering journey. But things change. You know? As I started, I was very more technical, and then all of the softer skills getting added as requirement for my role. Right? How do I run a meeting effectively? And as I grew more and more, I had to deal with more and more people, and that people side got way more interesting for me. So, I talk about my library when I, when I write that blog post where, initially, most of my books were technical. When I started my engineering journey, you can find my library from a programming books. And then as this continues, there's, like, addition of softer skills book getting added to my library. And I would see myself reading those books more more than my technical books, and sometimes I ask myself, like, am I doing the right thing? Am I, like, going away from my path and doing something new? But, I could say, like, my mindset as my library kind of get transitioned to the people side of it. And over time, I find that more interesting because if I can enable and empower people, and I've been told many times that this is your strength, If I can do that, I would have way more impact than just running myself and executing myself. Mhmm. Do you find that curiosity that you you found for evolving, you know, soft skills and and newer technologies? That that's definitely a theme that we've heard from almost everyone that we've talked to on this podcast, the curiosity to try new things and then also not be afraid to fail when you're trying new things, but just that curiosity in general. Do you find that to be a crucial a crucial trait to have for a leader? And if so, is that something that you you try and cultivate with your, oh, hey. Visit from the cat. I was hoping he'd show up. Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher. I'm gonna show up. Show up. Yeah. Is that a trait that you is is that a trait that you cultivate in people that you're leading who who also show that they wanna be leaders? If they don't have that trait or if they do have it, is that something that you cultivate with them? I mean, people have different personalities. That's the thing I've learned, and not everyone wanna branch this many branches, to be honest. Some people like to go in-depth in one thing, and they stay in one thing, and they they, like, create expertise. Some people like me, they they just like to explore, and they gets maybe bored. I I would like I feel whenever I feel comfortable, and I learn something and I know I'm good at it right now and I'm comfortable with it, now I start to, like, seek something else. I challenge myself constantly. Not everyone is like that, and it's okay, not to be like that. I think people have very, very different personalities. And, if they are the opposite of the spectrum, doesn't mean that they're not successful, and they can't be greatly less. But for me, specifically, my personality was in that spectrum of, like, I I don't stay in one zone when I'm comfortable, and I'm constantly want to learn something new. Every year, I pick a new technology to learn out of nowhere. Like, this year, I was looking at quantum computing. Is it related to my job? No. It's it's like out of nowhere I do learn it. It's interesting to me. Is there any re that's a that's a hefty, hefty topic to start learning. Is there a reason you chose that, or you just you saw it, you had almost no idea what it was, and you just wanted to start exploring it? Exactly. I saw it. I had no idea. I read things about it, how it solves problem, like, developing new drugs and proteins and working on human DNA, and I'm like, oh my god. This is this is super interesting. How does this work? And I started, like, listening to YouTube videos and then reading books about, like, quantum mechanics. So, yeah, I think it's just a curiosity and me wanting to pushing myself constantly out of my comfort zone and challenge myself. I feel that I'm if I feel like I'm in one place, I feel I'm stagnating. So it's it's all about personalities. Like, we have different personality traits. I think my my my personality, I'm more of, like, an alpha personality where I have, like, very extreme growth mindset. But people have, like, different spectrums. Some people are very focused on one thing, and they're really great at it, and they don't go out of it. So I think that's totally fine to be in a different spectrum. As long as you're growing, it should be totally fine. Yeah. I think it's also a future it sounds like it's also a future focus too. Right? Curious about what comes next. I mean, people studying people have been studying, obviously, AI and large language models for, you know, years already. We just, as the public, come to see it now. So maybe, like you're saying, quantum computing is that next frontier in 10, 20 years that sort of becomes more more mainstream. Yeah. So, yeah, that that future focus is is interesting. I heard somewhere that, like, I guess at some point, quantum computers can essentially break all encrypted passwords that we have today. So it it could be an interesting problem to solve for tomorrow. Right? Like, how do we secure devices if not with, you know, with passwords and things? Yeah. I think that one thing that it was around 2015 when I went to ACM of ours. I don't know if anyone familiar. Association of Computer Machinery is, like, one of the most prestigious computer science, association, and this award is, like, a Nobel Prize for scientists. So that year, I think, was Bernice Lee who invented the Internet who got the award, and it was at the award ceremony. And there was a committee who is protecting our data. And it was very interesting to me because all of our data now is binary. And with quantum computing, be the future, and it's not transferrable, how are how are our data gonna be read with quantum machines? Who's gonna protect it? Who's gonna keep a repository of all of our data? And it was surprising to me that there is a whole committee who's responsible for taking care of our data, you know, as a society. And, they're thinking about all of these things. It's like, how do we transfer this data to quantum later on? So people can look at their images, or look at their binary data. But, yeah, if when you go to these places and you see people forward thinking these many levels, you'll be amazed to hear, like, there are people actually thinking about this thing. Yeah. And I also assume one thing I've heard you talk about in other podcasts as well is networking, especially as you just wanna become a better a better engineer, better employee, networking with people. And I'm sure those types of events also introduce you to people with really interesting things that they say and and even new topics that you can then, 5 years later, start to investigate yourself. And so what's the for for this podcast and for the people listening here, what is the value of networking that you, you know, find yourself and that you train for or or you you pass on to your mentees as well? Yeah. That's a good question. Well, a couple of things. First of all, don't network because you want something from people. Network before you want something from people. So beat those relationships before it comes to, like, looking for a job or, you know, changing your role. And, I always call it vertical and horizontal net networking. So when you are at a role in in your company, you need both of them. So you start the first three months of your role to 1st 6 months doing vertical networking. And by vertical, I mean your team, your manager, your skip manager, and everyone in the chain, and your close partners, so anyone you work with day to day base. So build relationship with those people. But after that 6 months, you start to do horizon networking, which means going outside your team to other teams that you don't know about. A lot of companies have so many tools. Like, I remember when I was at Netflix, there was this coffee chat where you could register, and you get randomly, matched with someone across the company and you could get a coffee with. At LinkedIn, we have, like, similar tools that you can go in and, you know, chat with people across the company. If your company doesn't have 1, be the leader and build 1, so people can chat with each other. Or just simply, you know, ping people for, like, a 15 minute coffee chat to learn about them, introduce yourself, and, just connect with them. And then later on, you will be surprised how those people would show up in your journey, in your career. Not everyone have to give you a job or refer you. They will inspire you in so many ways as you're networking with them. You may have a question or you may get an idea and you can run by them or they would just be your advocates. They know you somehow. And when there is an opportunity, they remember you, and they put your name up on the table. So that's that's a thing. Always remember. Don't forget that horizontal networking. People usually go to companies, and they just rely on the vertical networking. They don't know really anyone across the company, and it's similar outside. As I mentioned, your career is not bound to a company, so think the same thing. Vertical networking in your area, horizontal networking outside your area, network with recruiters in different companies, network with people outside your field. LinkedIn right now make it super easy for everybody. I think 10 years was their LinkedIn, but it wasn't as active as now where you could find people this easily. Now we are getting to the area of conferences being back again after COVID. So attended conferences, meetups, and chat with people, learn about them, and they will learn about you too. So that's a that's a good thing to be at. And there is so many things nowadays. I mean, you see all of these mentorship platforms that's showing up, which wasn't there 10 years ago when we started. That's a great way of networking, getting a mentor. It's a next level because that person is investing in you. And if someone is invest in you, they're way more willingly advocating for you later on than someone who just you meet in a conference. So go on on these platforms. You know, there's a ton of them across the industry. Maybe get to the session with different mentors, people you aspire to be like them or people you they're ahead of you and you wanna get there. Learn how do they get there and ask for their advice. And then later on, when you build these relationships and talk to so many different people, they will invest in you and advocate for you whenever you are in your career. Yeah. You mentioned LinkedIn was a good resource for that. Obviously, you know, that's bringing the entire network together and having making it easier for people to just reach out. In the past, like, I found it maybe awkward or or scary almost to reach out to people for advice. Like, what would you when you're reaching out to someone that doesn't know you at all completely cold and wanting to network with them, what are some tips that you would recommend on that initial sort of cold message? I won't really do that. Right? I won't reach out to someone I don't know, and I don't advise that. That's why I'm saying, like, network before you actually need an advice, like, have a really broad people that you know. I won't send a cold message to someone and say, hey. I need an advice, and I know need 30 minutes of your time. People are super busy, especially people who are in better stages that can advise you. Right? Go get a mentor. Right now, there is so many ways of doing that. There's all of these platforms. There's Play Doh, Mentor Cruise, MentorMe. I mean, there's so many of them out there that you can find these people on those platforms actually offering you time. So, go find those platforms and find those people, and that's respecting their time and also going there professionally and getting the advice you need. And that will build trust between you and that person because your mentor is now trusting you. And then you can send the cold message after you have couple of sessions with this person and say, you know what? I need an advice on this. What do I do? And they will always there for you. Like, I'll tell all my mentees, like, I'm your all time advocate. Anytime I mentor, I'll be there for them, like, through their career. So, yes, it can happen. People, like, send them cold messages and say, hey. Can you make a referral? And I'm like, I I don't even know you. And that makes me question your judgment because how would you want me someone who actually doesn't know you at all to refer you to a role versus someone who's coming in and say, look. I'm looking for a job, and these are the things I wanna get better at. I have a good understanding of myself. Can you advise me how can I find a job? And then at that stage, when I have couple of chats with that person, may mock interview them, I know how their level and how they are. And I actually myself refer them to places that I think it's a great fit for them. So it happens very naturally when you build the relationship the right way. I am not a believer in those cold messages. Sometimes they work, but, I mostly believe in building relationships that are strong with people that have really good foundation and trust. Yeah. That's that's really good advice. I think it's crucial these days to kind of build those are you when you open a position, are Are you when you open a position, are you first thinking of people who have built that type of a relationship with you, whether they're, you know, someone who would fit the position? And then, are you reaching out to your network of people saying, do you know somebody who might fill this position or might fit this position? I guess, which one or both? You know, do you look for both of those types of sources for people when you're scaling your teams? Yeah. So I try to be fair because I don't wanna only look at the people I know and advocate for them, only because I wanna give opportunity to people who I don't know and they can apply to the role. So we I usually build a pool of people where 10 to 20% of them are people I know and I know it's a good fit for this role, and the rest are opportunity for other people to apply to the role. And I take a look at those resumes too. But because I know these people, because I invested them, when a role pops up, I have them top of my mind, and I ping them that this is a role that's popped up. If you're interested, apply. But I'm not giving them extra benefits as other people. But the fact that I'm pinging them as a hiring manager and I'm saying apply, they will get an interview pretty easier than people who are applying to the roles, especially in this market. You know a role is popping up in 2 hours. There's 100 of applicants. And, if you have that relationships that people know you, top of their mind, that's the key to get a role is that people who advocate for you and put your name on the table without you wanting that. And that's a huge key to success in the in your career is that building those relationship that can result in this. So whenever I open a role, I have people on top of my mind that I know they're looking for a role and a great fit for this role. And, and I really do that because I know it benefit their role and benefit them. So I don't really refer people who are I don't think they're a good fit. And, you know, they've been people that their life changed because of that. I mean, they get into really big tech companies. I had a mentee who was a waiter, and, afterwards, he got hired at Meta, and that's changed his life. So many of these stories, people who are just entering tech and, you know, it's really hard to find your first job and build relationships like this with people across the industry who can refer them and advocate for it. Them. So it's a it's a both mix up pool because fairness is super important when I hire. I wanna make sure I give, like, opportunity to all type of people, be as, you know, inclusive as possible to, like, all people from different backgrounds. Also, look at my team and say, like, okay. Is my team diverse enough? You know, what I'm needing. Like, do I have enough women at my team? I don't want, like, to having 1 woman in the room or 1 man in room to feel, like, isolated. I want everyone to feel belonging. So looking at the gaps on my team and see, like, what are those gaps that I'm looking for to fill in and really building that diverse pool of people, who are coming in to interview. Yeah. And on the taking it from from the hiring side, I'm I'm curious putting you as the candidate. I know you were presented with options, you know, to maybe go to YouTube or Google and and LinkedIn, and, obviously, you you ultimately chose LinkedIn. When looking for a place to go, like, what was that deciding factor that made you choose LinkedIn and and framing that as advice for people who are listening? You know, if they're presented with so many options or so many different paths, like, how do you choose? Mhmm. So, the framework I walk my mentees through is we do have a value table. Before you actually start job searching, you put together maximum five values you're looking into the next role. What are the things you really want in your next role? Example, for me, like, people mattered. I wanna work in a culture that people come first. Growth mattered. I wanted to work in in a company that supports my growth. You know, technology mattered. I wanted to be a cutting edge technology. Product mattered for me. I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on before, and there are a couple of other things that I have in my value table. And whenever I am interviewing a company, and I always say that interview is a two way assessment. There are things you're assessing too. These values are the things you have to assess. Ask the recruiter. Ask the hiring manager in your first interview. What is the growth framework on your team? Who was the last person who got promoted on your team? How does promotion happens? How do you support an engineer who falls behind? How do you onboard people onto new team? You know, all of these questions you can ask to assess how good is that company and that team role for you in terms of your value. Ask about the product if it matters. Like, how old is the product? Is it a new thing? Why are we is this a bet? You know? Is it something that we're just gonna do right now and just, disappear, like, a year from now, or is this something the company wanna invest in long term? If these things matter for you, be prepared to ask these questions because a lot of people go into roles blindly just because it's at a good company, and then they're not happy there afterwards because they're not assessing in their interview, their role in the company. And then when you have these values and you're interviewing, I give a score from 1 to 10. 10 means they're great at it. 1, they're very poor. And, then when you're reaching to the offer stage, like top 3, top 2, interview that you're doing, you can see the differences. So, for example, for me, between YouTube and LinkedIn, it was a product. I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on, and for me, YouTube was a streaming again. And I'm not a person to go in-depth. As you know, my personality, I love the breadth. I love to get things which is new. I never work on a social media platform like LinkedIn. So that was a a factor like, one of the biggest factor on that table that I picked LinkedIn over YouTube. So if you have that values, it's easy to to know, like, which one I I wanna go to and which value I wanna compromise, which one is compromiseable for me, which one is nice. For me, work life balance is not compromiseable. It's a value. I do a lot of things outside work, and work is not my only thing in life. So, I wanted a company that, you know, I don't have to work 247 because I really don't admire that type of environment. So I think it's toxic. So what are those values and which one you cannot compromise and assessing those over your interview then when you're at a offer stage? You you don't have a hard time to know which one do you have to pick. Yeah. Yeah. I I think I saw that you last end of towards the end of last year ran a marathon, and so those types of hobbies, I think, are pretty important. You know? Pedro and I play music music, and, I think Pedro is a coffee aficionado, so he loves making coffee. So I think it's important to have those things outside of work to to make sure you stay balanced. It sounds like you have several ways that you evolve yourself. You know, you you said you mentioned reading books and just being curious and learning new technologies. You probably also have your own mentor who you who you get advice from or several mentors. So is it is it hard, or do you just find it come naturally to still make sure that you're growing as a as a person? Do those does that time come easy, or do you have to make sure that you, you know, spend a couple hours a week making sure that you're growing as a leader as well? That's a great question. I feel that's come naturally for me. It's not like I mostly build habits versus, like, I have to read, like, 3 hours per week. It's not like that. It comes as a habit. You all know the book, Atomic Habits. Right? It's like stacking things and building habits and systems. For me, mostly, it's systems in my life. And you can't have all of it at the same time. Like, you can't go to the gym and read books and be great at your work and get a mentor and run projects. It's not possible. You need to have balance long term, but in short term, you may not have a balance. So let's say if you if you wanna get better at something and you have, like, 3 books to finish, you may have to cut off from your gym time or running time or whatever you're doing at on the side for, like, a week. And then a week after, you know that what is cutting off was my running, and now I'm done with this book. So this is the things I'm gonna prioritize. I'm pulling it back up this week. I'm gonna focus on it more. So in long run, there is a balance between all of these things you're doing. But in short run, you prioritize between these things because you can't have all of these things together. And then you build systems for yourself. Systems of learning. What's your system of learning? Is that books right now is so integrated into my life. It's something that, you know, I usually read in the morning when I wake up or if it's a book. Even learning how to read a book pretty fast is super important and summarize it so you can refer to it later on. But building that systems that actually can help you. For me, Fridays is my self reflection days. It's a day I have a session in the morning with my mentor. And after that session, I self reflect on, like, how what did I do this week? What are the areas I did really well? What are the top things top five things I did at my work? Then that top five things goes to 1 on 1 next week with my manager. And this is kind of what we call it managing up. Like, how do you how do you manage up, and how do you tell your manager and your escape what are you doing, and it's getting harder as you're going higher and higher. So that's that's a way of me managing up by taking that 5 outlines and putting in my 1 on 1 doc, and then self reflecting of what are the things I have to do next week, looking at my team structure, how everyone is doing, did I capture what they did greatly this week? I do that for my team too, like, every individual on the team. I have a running doc that I say these are the things they did really well this week. So when it comes to their performance review, I am very detailed for advocating for them, for every engineer, and I'm taking all that recognition in. What are the feedbacks I have to give them? I'm very proactive on giving my direct reports feedback. I will let it sit. If someone is not doing something very well or there is there is a gap that they can do better, it would be right away. Every week, I'm thinking about their performance and how they did. So it won't be a surprise. You know? There are some managers that suddenly come after, like, a year, and they say, you didn't do all of these things. And, that's hinder trust. The trust is broken at that stage. So the more honest and the more periodic and the smaller these pieces of feedbacks are and very targeted, the better those those people can grow. So Friday, my system of self reflection into my life, plan of next week, How's my month look like? Am I having enough fun? How's my gym is going? How's my workouts? Relationship wise, am I spending time with people I love? Like, sometimes I'm so much slanted at work. I forget about my friends. I'm like, next week, I'm gonna set time with my friends. Next week, I'm gonna spend more time talking to my mom. There are, like, 4 categories in my life. It's career, which is one that you all have. It's love and relationships, like you being very socially, satisfied with, like, going out with people, your best friends, your family, your close relatives, spending time with them. For me, financial life matters. I'm doing on that. Am I, like, on track with my goals? And then, health, like, in terms of am I drinking enough water? Am I a happy person? How's my mental health? Do I need, like, some of the weeks that I'm very exhausted? I usually go to a lighter sort of workout. And I'm like, okay. This week, I'm gonna go do yoga instead of running because I want less intensity in my life. So how are you assessing that and then having that, like, long term balance? There is this book also called design your life where it talks about these categories, which is something I took from this book, And then, having that categories help me to balance. So I measure every category every week, and I see how I'm doing and which category requires attention. I prioritize a week after. I like that. I have to check out that book. Yeah. I'm I am writing that down because, there's definitely weeks or several weeks in a row where I might neglect 1 or 2 of those categories for sure. So that's that's a good book to write down. Awesome. So, yeah, I think, we're coming close to time here for you know, thank you, Naz, for your for your time. I think maybe we could wrap it up with, you know, what's some advice that you would give to anyone who's listening, maybe something top of mind that's, you know, come across your mind over the last week or 2, that you'd like to just kinda pass along? And then where can everyone find you and and follow your journey? Yeah. Sure. Oh, that's a hard question. I mean, something that has been top of my mind. I was reading yesterday a quote about someone who lays off. I think it was a company called Clarify, and she wrote couple of points I shared on my LinkedIn as opposed to where things I've learned from layoffs. And one of it is, like, really thinking about how do you not bound to one job and then have some back ups, make sure that that happens. The other was, like, really thinking about yourself and getting yourself back up. And, one point that was funny, and a lot of people didn't agree, is that people are there for you when you get laid off. But the reality is they're not. Everyone having their own job, and you can expect that you're getting laid off and everyone is there for you. And now your friends are taking you to their companies. I mean, they do their best, but it's not the case. So be prepared. I mean, be prepared. Have your resume ready all the time. I mean, don't just get on your resume when you need a job. Your resume is a reflection of you, and it needs to be ready and updated. Your LinkedIn needs to be ready and updated with latest things you do. And then always and always have 1 or 2 interview per year. What are you doing with the company? Even if you're at a place that you're comfortable, always, always interview. You are you'll be at the ready state all the time. Also, you learn about the market and what's going on, in other companies when you interview with them, and it's a it's a way of also networking. So when you interview with hiring managers and they get to know you, later on when they have a role and if you perform there in that interview, they're gonna they're gonna reach out to you. So be ready, before something happens is actually the key in this market. And knowing that your work is not bound to a company. You're taking your work to different companies' missions and vision and enabling part of their journey as a really amazing engineer. And, none of us have to be in a place forever. At least in tech, it's not the case. So Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. I I think I think you also once mentioned sorry to sorry to jump in there. I think you also once mentioned around the interviewing process. You also just received feedback feedback from those people about how you present on a camera or your answers, or you get some valuable feedback from those interviews as well. Yeah. And be very transparent when you do those interviews. Like, I'm not actively looking, but this looks like a good opportunity. I wanna I wanna assess and learn more about this company. Why not doing an interview? And putting yourself in those situations more often makes you more comfortable. You'll be more confident. So if people wanna find me, I'm on LinkedIn, nazdaalum. Also, you can find all my handles on my website, nazda dev, and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about anything I mentioned. Hopefully, we can have those books listed, John, somewhere, so people can find it on-site reference. Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely gonna say I'm gonna keep in contact with you just to see what books you're reading. Awesome, Naz. Well, yeah, I I really I personally found a lot of value from this conversation. There's a lot of things that, you mentioned that I just tend to forget over time, and so I definitely found some great value out of this conversation. Everyone, go follow her on LinkedIn. Pedro's battery is exhausted. My battery is exhausted, so my camera died, but I am here. Thank you, Nez. Thanks so much for your time. Yeah. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for having me. It was great.","a60d2206-ae2c-4b55-8852-1d6ccdb37b08",[287,288,289],"85ed5f74-71ab-41e4-819b-8fbf9016b148","fffe5668-66d7-4e0f-a750-7681b9b28ed5","b5fd03ff-9663-403d-8a8f-3e70b923f054",[],{"id":134,"number":135,"show":122,"year":136,"episodes":292},[138,139,140,141,142],{"id":139,"slug":294,"vimeo_id":295,"description":296,"tile":297,"length":298,"resources":8,"people":8,"episode_number":135,"published":299,"title":300,"video_transcript_html":301,"video_transcript_text":302,"content":8,"seo":303,"status":130,"episode_people":304,"recommendations":308,"season":309},"david-simmer","948632658","In this episode of Trace Talks, David Simmer, Senior Software Engineer at Netflix, shares his unique journey into tech, starting from college AV/IT jobs to helping technical teams be more productive at Netflix. He talks about the importance of empathy in engineering, balancing hands-on coding with leadership, and using generative AI to boost efficiency. David also offers practical advice for aspiring leaders on seizing opportunities and promoting themselves. ","d5252dcc-cdb3-4caa-bc2d-7b32622b8900",48,"2024-06-06","David Simmer, Senior Software Engineer at Netflix","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Remember the first time I, like, normalized a relational database. There was this clouds parting, feeling of of, like, I'm smart and I got this thing, and it feels so good to to see the elegance of it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks. We've been graced with the presence of David today. John and Pedro here as well. Don't don't worry.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We're still here for this conversation as well. But, David, I'd love for you to give yourself a brief introduction. Let the world know who you are. Just brief because we're gonna definitely dive into your background. So but let the world know who you are.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: You got it. I am employed right now as a senior engineer at Netflix. I'm in the consumer foundations team, but I spent, nearly the first 4 years there in the engineering. And outside that, I have a list of hobbies that's about 5 miles long.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Amazing. Yeah. We'll we'll definitely wanna get to that. But maybe at first, like, you know, what could you take us back to the the moment that kinda ignited your passion for, you know, blending technology and and design and, you know, kind of what got you into technology and into the space in the first place?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: For sure. For me, it was a student job in college. I got a job in the AV department, and it turned out to also be the IT department, which tells you something about when that was and how small things were at the time. And what got me into that was as a student at that college attempting to use the online scheduling tool that they'd built to just figure out what my class schedule is gonna be for for the term. And, the two things I noticed, most strongly about it were that it was ugly and hard to use.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I started asking, could someone change this? And then that question turned into, can I change this? And one of the great fortunate circumstances of my life was that the person in charge said, sure. Here's something you can change, and that was really the start. And and those two things, like, ugly and hard to use are really the the the converse, which is beautiful and nice to use is just continues to be a motivation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Amazing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I was I was gonna I was gonna make a joke that half the technology out there today still is ugly and hard to use. So you saw you saw that problem 20 something years ago, which is pretty awesome. Did you have any technical experience before that or maybe just tinkering on a a computer every now and then? Or or you just saw something ugly and you wanted to fix it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Only a little bit. I had taken a rudimentary Photoshop course at Kinko's, before I owned a computer. And then, you know, just really basic stuff. I think a friend had had me over and been like, this is email, and here's how to get on AOL. But, other than that, a little bit of tinkering with, like, a hand me down DOS computer and a little bit of work on trail.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That was it. So it really was just the motivation of, I don't know how to do it, but I would like to learn, and I have some, you know, I have even though I don't know anything yet, I have some ideas about how that maybe this could be better, and that was the start.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Mhmm. Got it. Did have you since taken any sort of formal sort of design or UX UI, dove into that space?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Not not in the terms of, like, higher education or degree programs. So I I went to school originally to be a chiropractor. I wish I'd had better career advice or maybe had had changed tech earlier, but, I I have a, like, science and biology education, in undergrad, and all of my tech learning was, you know, the sir the term self taught is usually applied, but, this is something I mentioned a lot. I am taught by all the thousands of other people in this industry who love and are excited about what they do and who are delighted to write articles and make online courses and, produce demos showing how to do things with various technology. And so I have always loved, like, the design aspect.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>My mom, had an art background, and so I was homeschooled as a kid, and so she made sure to incorporate that. And I always I always really enjoyed that part. But the actual melding of design and tech, that was just this exciting new field that there was, you know, there were so many resources out there, to consume that that's really where that came about.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: What what was the because I also got into technology kind of probably around the same time frame, and I was in school for design. Sure. But I remember back then, there wasn't there wasn't as many forums or definitely wasn't as many videos or boot camps, all those stuff that's out there today. What did you rely on? You know, you you took on you were going to school for chiropractory and science.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I don't think that's even a word, chiropractory.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I like it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: But you were going to school but you're going to school for something different, and you took on this tech project. How did you learn to build I looked at your LinkedIn, and you built a CMS. You built everything that was needed. How did you find how how to do that back then? You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because I had people in person in school. I was going to school for that, but there wasn't forums. You know? Were you in communities in person asking these questions, or did you find some online forums to ask questions?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It was there was a little bit. I remember, the, Jeffrey Zeltman's resource was a huge, or, like, his both his personal writing and then a list of part, which is a heavily CSS and, like, web standard sort of resource. That was one of my main go to's. And from there, that is really how I think I I you know, you could say I got my UI design education by their emphasis on not just, hey. This is beautiful and here are principal's design.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, they mentioned those things, and, clearly, a a lot of the people in the community cared about that kind of stuff. But the, the larger point of so much of their writing and their tutorials and their excitement about, like, CSS becoming the main way to style things and and and the accessibility benefits of that versus the old clutches we were using to try to get things layout on screen that totally ignored the concerns of screen readers or assistive devices or anything else was this, it needs to be nice for humans to use. And it being beautiful is sometimes a companion, sometimes as a side effect to that, but that the primary thing is here's how to make it nice for him to use. And, also, by the way, here's how to have it kind of be more pleasant as a developer. You get that that mental satisfaction of having done this in a way that is elegant.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Again, that that elegance, you know, can turn into cleverness and be awful in a lot of ways, but that was always a side effect of doing building things in a way that are pleasant for humans to use.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And that and that makes sense. I think that was that's sort of, like, the turning point for technology become more widely adopted, right, with the PC and, kind of personal computing. And still companies today are pushing that forward. Like, a company that could take something very technical and and and just make it user friendly and beautiful as I I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The the example I always think of is, like, Square. Right? Like, there have been payment processors and credit card terminals and all these things, but they made a very simple, smart little thing that had a beautiful, simple design and Yeah. Captured a ton of market share by just doing that, like, leading with design.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. It felt like the future instead of this awkward thing that beeps ain't really at you. It was just nice and yeah. Makes sense. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But there I I think all the time about, like, this sort of if you build it, they will come aspect of, like, you can kind of fall into that trap as a designer engineer where you just think, if I just build the beautiful thing, my marketing and business viability and all those other problems will solve themselves, which, of course, is your however, like, that do build something beautiful is still something worth hanging on.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. You've that's a good point to make. You know, you've you see a problem. You make it beautiful. You make it usable, and and people will gravitate towards it naturally.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Nice analogy, Pedro. I use Square myself. So it definitely I've I've found the the simplicity as well as ease of use, important. You've been on this long journey, not long, but you've been on this, wide ranging journey of different types of roles. I mean, even starting from chiropractor school to doing a c a CMS, and now you're at Netflix.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there's been a long journey along the way. What do you look for when you're looking for new projects or new roles, whether it's internal where you're at or, external companies? You know? What do you gravitate towards? Do you gravitate towards somewhere where you know you can fix problems, or do you gravitate towards somewhere where you know you can grow as an employee and as as a engineer designer?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, what I guess, what ranks importance for you when you're looking for new projects and roles?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Having, like, a baked in change of scenery or having having a change of scenery every so often has always been really important to me. I had, for a while, when I in one of my first roles, I was working for a small company. I probably stayed there longer than I should have. I had a bunch of friends, who were in agencies, and they had this sort of mental turnover of new clients, new projects that kept them interested in tackling new things. And I really started to desire that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so that, for me, has been a motivator in finding new things. In fact, it was and being the reason I left that company and set out to freelance for a while. I, rely on money to pay for the things that I enjoy and and, need to live in life. So that's also a motivator. But, really, you know, that that aside, I think there is a blend of the 2.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So when I found the role I was hired into at Netflix when I read that job description, it described it used all of the words that I was looking for in terms of the the mission of the role and what I'd be working with and the variety that was baked into it. And so that was one of the exciting things. But I think what, also really drew me to that was that it was on a team of people who had a wide variety of skills, but where my skills weren't sort of fully representative, weren't already duplicated by somebody else. And so it was gonna be that chance to to bring the things I knew that I was good at, and to to add them there. I I didn't come to it that role with the feeling of, though, that, like, I got this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'll show them, you know, what's going on. It was it was very much the opposite of, okay. This is the role that sounds awesome, but, of course, it's Netflix. And, you know, I'm not ready. Maybe they'll give me more time to prepare.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, of course, you know, the interview, you know, was like, can you come talk next week? And so I, you know, I I put a lot of effort into it, but it was that, that combination of this is, this is an amazing opportunity. It's exactly what I wanna do that I think really spurred, you know, really putting a lot of focus and effort into into that interview process there.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And it and it seems like throughout your career, you've kind of transitioned between different roles and different industries. And now at Netflix, like, what what experience do you think was the most important or the most pivotal in shaping your approach to leadership that that you're sort of in it in that position now?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Sure. There's been a few things. I I think the the progression I've been I've made in my career, the opportunities that I've had have been, thanks to other people who kind of already understood it. One of the people I think of a lot is is a old boss of mine, Gunther, at that first company, who in our one on ones, instead of it being project recap time, he made sure that we were talking about what did I want to do in my career and what was I interested in long term beyond this company, beyond working for him. And then fast forward a few, and there was a moment where I was a more senior engineer on a relatively small team.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there was really a need, in order to make our junior engineers more effective. It wasn't going to be sort of teaching them in the sense of, hey. Here's how you do complicated things. They already had a lot of of skill at the technical things that they were taking on. Where, leadership was needed was for someone like me to do the glue work as it's, been described of, you know, a little bit of private project management, a lot of, taking care of some, you know, just sort of, like, unblocking chores for the team, being ahead of things like that, setting a a direction, you know, in cases where there was some ambiguity, providing, at least a decision and some reasoning, that we can all act on from there.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. I think it was seeing examples of other people and then just kind of realizing that there's this need and this is that by serving these other people on the team, that is actually a huge part of being a leader. And, and it was satisfying to start doing that. You know? In in isolation, the idea of of just, like, project management work sometimes feels boring or a chore or something you wanna procrastinate, on.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But when you are multiplying the happiness and and effectiveness of other people by doing that, then it becomes satisfying.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I that's a common thread that we've heard in a lot of these conversations that we've had is people who have worked their way up to some form of leadership. They've had good leaders, a lot of good leaders along the way. Some of them have had not great leaders, but, they all have this drive, and I I think it's ingrained in them by those good leaders. I think good leaders today have been trained by good leaders.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So do you enjoy leading more now, or do you enjoy getting your hands, you know, in and doing coding and designing still, a mixture of both? Some people prefer, you know, to train people and lead them like a true leader should, but some people still miss getting in their getting their hands in the dirt and and doing development work. So do you still get a mixture of those, and do you like that combination, or do you prefer 1 or the other?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I do still get a mixture. I do still love that mixture. I I often think about this because definitely the part of me, the engineer designer who loves building things, can very much get in the zone on a feature and be very happy, you know, towing away there and making it really awesome. And what I have to remind myself of is, like, I do have a desire to be a a good leader, a good engineering leader.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I often have this feeling that and this is probably something, you know, I was gonna say, real leaders also still still feel what that that feeling of, like, well, I'm I I don't have as much experience or as much to give there yet or, you know, I'm not I want to be, but I'm not yet. And I think that that awareness isn't all bad, but also that just saying, well, I'm not a leader yet isn't necessarily helpful because I am doing things that are, leading other folks. For instance, I'm I'm frequently mentoring a junior engineer on our team right now, who is awesome, but there's so much about being a software engineer that isn't necessarily computer science. And a lot of those things, like, we are working together on, and it doesn't feel like me wagging my finger at Hertz. We're talking about these things, and I am able to provide that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I love doing that. I think one of the things that's essential if you want to do that is to make sure that you have some time set aside to do that. If I get so attached to my feature work and building the thing and then realize, like, oh, it's 1 minute until my 1 on 1, with the person I'm mentoring. Okay. Well, I'll just ask her how things are going.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Then not only have I will I probably not do as, I probably won't be as good a resource for her, but also I've short changed myself on putting having some time to think ahead about what is important here, even even if there wasn't mentorship involved. For me to spend more time thinking ahead about the strategy for the project I'm working on, where I fit in my organization, how I see roles shifting, or the importance of teams, or how a strategy doc that I read might affect our team. Those are the things that leaders do. And if you begin spending the time doing the things that leaders do, either you'll find yourself being equipped to be a leader or you'll find yourself actually being in a leadership position, because you began acting that way. And that's that's really the the approach I've been trying to take.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, I I love getting to have a 1 on 1 with a director or, you know, like, several skip levels up. And and I'm always asking, like, how did you get here? But it's not just what did you do to get here. It's what circumstances got you here, and what do you spend your time doing. And these these roles that I, you know, possibly aspire to have one day, I'd like to be, at least able to think like a person who has that role now even when it's not my role yet.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because without that reflection and beginning to get yourself in the mindset of that different role, it's extremely unlikely someone's gonna come along and be like, great work building that thing. You're gonna direct some people now. So that's that's the mindset I've tried to take.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's important also as you as people continue to to climb upward in their, you know, personal and professional trajectory to to remember because you had mentioned, feeling like you might not be qualified or feeling like you don't know everything to be in a position that you might be in. I think it's important for people to realize that nobody nobody knows everything, and what you just mentioned there still having time to reach out to your superiors to to ask those same type as a questions that you're passing that information down to people who you're training as well. I think it's important to remember growing as a human and growing as a employee and growing as just whatever you're in, whatever field you're in, it's a two way street. You know, you learn from those who have been there before, and that's kind of the reason of this podcast.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you you pass that information down to those that you're training. So do you these days, I assume it's probably a different answer than if you'd answered this 15 years ago. Do you find more satisfaction in a junior engineer that you're training, get unstuck from a bug that they've been trying to fix or get promoted, or do you find more enjoyment in fixing a a major bug yourself? I assume it's probably seeing those that you're training, you know, get to the next stage in their development.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Right. Like, it's it's tough to answer because it's still still joy in both, but I think you're right that it is the the latter because that's beyond that there's a a bigger effect that cascades far beyond that I, you know, unstuck a button that that wasn't working. Yeah. To see another person take off. And especially, like, there's there's so much joy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, I I had mentioned that I had been in a in one career and then switched. And in in down moments, I have phrased it as I wasted those years of my life. That's not true, of course, because the person I am now is built out of those experiences. But one of the things that I get a lot of joy out and mention explicitly to younger engineers that I see, is that I'm so stoked that they are, like, getting started now. At work and especially for those who are really good at customer empathy and being curious and, thinking about strategic things and the health of the team and and sort of the work beyond just the the work itself that they are going to go so far.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And especially, you know, when I, like, I when I run into these sorts of folks at Netflix, I'm even more excited of like, for me, it feels like this amazing place to work where, I I finally got here, but after quite a long time in my career at, you know, you could say, like, smaller companies. I mean, smaller companies. It felt it felt like a a personally, like, such a huge achievement to make this this prospective company. And, I am so stoked to see young engineers getting jobs at, like, awesome companies and getting to start learning from amazing people way earlier than I did. It's it's so cool to see that, and I love being a part of that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Stoked. I haven't heard that word in a while, so I I I appreciate the usage of that word. I mean, if you also, if you train people who are you, you know, who are your ment mentees, they'll do a lot of the work that then will possibly or potentially even enable you to then get more hands on in the code and and start fixing things because they're they're being smart enough and self sufficient enough to solve some problems that maybe a leader who hasn't trained their employees, would have to solve all of those problems. So I guess in a in a way, it probably helps you actually get back into coding and fixing bugs if you're training people to do some of that forward thinking leadership type stuff.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Totally. And, you know, there's so much that I still don't know or things where, you know, if I was just working by myself, I'd be looking up. Of course, the the great secret of of senior engineers is that we're still googling everything. And to do that in front of a junior engineer, I think, is a really helpful experience too to say I don't know. Or, you know, I've used this 4 times, or I configure this thing once a year when I set up a new whatever it is.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I don't remember what I was doing, so let's pull up in the documentation together and walk through it, and, you know, we'll we'll figure out how to do this again. Or that thing you're you're dealing with could be this, this, and this. It's not those. Okay. I don't have a ready answer off the top of my head, but you do a little more investigation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I will as well. Let's talk again in a couple hours and see if we've gotten anywhere. And that's that's what being an engineer is all the time, and, it is freeing to, be able to admit that. And, also, like, that would be a a chance for my own growth and my own either remembering how to do the technical task or, in the larger sense, just reminding myself that there's, there's I'm I there's so much I don't know. There's so much I'm gonna forget to remember and just it's I think it's so valuable for anyone who hasn't figured that out yet to get a glimpse into.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's just always that's gonna be how it is throughout your career. You don't have to feel bad about not knowing right away because 20 years from now, you still won't know anything right away.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. The other thing that's interesting that you mentioned is empathy because it's it's something that we don't typically think about as a, you know, an engineering skill. Right? You think about the technical skills associated. But would you say that empathy and ABC's some of these other skills are, just as important or maybe more important as engineers are making their way, you know, up through the ranks or, you know, in different roles, within organizations?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Absolutely. Because there's so much, like, delightfulness and fun in embracing and understanding a complex thing. I remember the first time I, like, normalized a relational database. There was this clouds parting, feeling of of, like, I'm smart, and I got this thing, and it feels so good to to see the elegance of it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So there's plenty of pleasure there. But, I think once you get out of just building something for its own sake or learning a technology or or kind of seeing how clever you can get with your understanding of a knowledge of a language that you know well, Ultimately, you're going to be engineering things, designing things for someone else to use. You may be several layers removed from, let's say, a customer outside your company. In my case, you know, productivity engineering, your your customers are other engineers inside the company. And so still that, that aspect of empathy is necessary for a couple things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>1 is just that when you have gotten a request for something to be built, something to be changed, You could just take it exactly as it's written and knock out that thing and feel like you check the box and move the Jira store over to the done column. But to be good at what you do, the result should really not just be only the thing you were told to do. It should accomplish the purpose of what are we trying to do here. Are we trying to make this simpler for a user? Are we trying to actually make the experience a little higher friction to avoid someone mistakenly deleting something important?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's so many of those ways of thinking about things that that you're designing and engineering. Were to produce the highest quality version of the thing that you were assigned, you need to think through the eyes of the customer, probably the business, you know, understand all the needs that go into that. But then I think in addition to just producing the best version of the thing you could, I think empathy gives you curiosity and excitement and delight and the interest in taking on or suggesting changes that weren't already thought of, that weren't, identified. You can be the person who identifies those things. When you hear the frustration that someone has of, like, like, I have to click this 5 times, and then sometimes that this last step doesn't work.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>One way it's you could view that is, like, okay. Well, the problem is, like, the the bug is that it breaks at that 5th step depending on a certain scenario. So you could fix that, but, also, is there I have to click 5 things to do this at once? Like, that customer just gave you some very valuable insight into what they're thinking or kind of what they want or what annoys them. And if you're not attuned to catching those kind of things, you might not ever take the time to say, can we rethink how this interaction works so that it's one click?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's it's none. We, you know, make this whole thing more pleasant for the user. We don't just fix the bug that was described. We listened, and we might be able to invent something that really makes this whole thing more pleasant.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I think you're so right. Yeah. Like, that was\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I think you could have been a chiropractor. Someone says my back hurts, and we kinda find out why their back is actually hurting. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I think you're so right, though. Sometimes we're so we're so involved, and we're so deep and close to something that we can't zoom out and see the bigger picture, and it does take empathy to do that. I mean, you know, John and I can speak for ourselves, but we're in conversations with folks all the time that are just like, oh, I need this software to check these four boxes. Like, well, hold on. Let's back up and, like, how does this impact you, the organization, the people you work with?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, what's the actual business outcome, the personal outcome? And I think, engineers thinking that way is is definitely an interesting way to look at it because you can you can actually solve the core problem. Sometimes they're just like, oh, it doesn't like you said, it doesn't work at the 5th step. Well, maybe the whole process is the problem, and it could be reinvented. So that's that's really interesting.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. So what you know, all of working your way up to leadership isn't, roses and daisies. So what kind of, you know, part of this podcast is kind of passing on this advice and and your experiences to people who are listening. So what have been some of the struggles that you you faced? Is it, you know, having to deal with meetings, leadership meetings?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I I assume those are I don't know how they are at Netflix, but in in some places, they're not fun. They're just kind of monotonous. But what have been some of the struggles that you've faced as you've worked your way up and and some things that you would say, hey, 15 year younger myself, be aware of this and or do this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. The first things come to mind are kind of personal habits of, like, giving myself a little too much room to procrastinate, not being as frequent a communicator, an aversion to maintenance. Like, I I was thinking about this recently that I think I have this inbuilt feeling that whenever I, like, buy a thing, it should just continue working forever. And, of course, you have to, like, change oil and dust and clean and, you know, all those may maintenance things. And, I think in similar ways, times where I've done you know, I I was given a chance to lead a thing and I didn't do a great job at it, Oftentimes came down to that of a lack of personal organization.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, I didn't kind of put in some important work ahead of time, and so I had to scramble to get a result at the end. And sometimes that works out, and sometimes it doesn't. And, in making yourself, you know, not making yourself visible enough or not being a communicator, not chiming in on meetings, I think there's a lot of a lot of times where had I been more aware that just that involvement, which takes work and energy to get yourself to, like, be there with your camera on and and, you know, to really to really be involved and not just, I saw a cartoon someone was like, how to how to, you know, make it appear that you've been contributing me to a meeting is to just say, thanks, everybody, at the end when you haven't said anything to the meeting. I mean, I so I've done that for a while, but I think I think avoiding those habits that require less energy, less investment, and just kind of, working on that is something I wish I'd started earlier. I heard I heard someone say that they've, it was another engineer at Netflix, It's Molly Stroup.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>She said, I realized that I wouldn't be an effective leader until I was an effective leader from in my own life, and that's really stuck with me of you just your personal inclination to wash the dishes and wipe down the kitchen counter when you'd rather just leave it for somebody else or not do it at all. I think that's that is a great little microcosm of, the kind of things you need to be, just willing to put the time into if you want to be a leader. And, you know, I mentioned I I mentioned, like, being on camera is an offhand thing, and there's plenty of reasons why in meetings. Like, I I'm glad our shift towards remote work and getting used to doing things over Zoom and the reasons why someone might be on camera. I'm not trying to denigrate any of those.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, in the the sort of being if if leadership is something you want to grow into, that putting this extra work in to provide energy and provide involvement to other people is really part of it. Just if you are there with contributions and and the feeling of, like, this is useful to be here and I am bringing my bringing my whole self here. Other people pick up on that, and that I think is is, super valuable. So I wish I'd I wish I'd focused on being that kind of person sooner.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That reminds me, kind of on the opposite spectrum. I I used to work at Dell, and there's a guy who had been in the same position for, I don't know, 15 years, 20 years, something like that. And I asked him one day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>His name is Joe. I'll I'll call out someone's name too, Joe O'Brien. I was like, Joe, you've don't you ever wanna, you know, climb up the ranks and be a manager or be a regional manager? He's and he said something he said, I'm really happy with my life, and I really like where I'm at, and so I'm comfortable here. And so I think on the other end of the spectrum, it's and this applies to leadership as well.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You kinda have to understand what your personal goals are. Don't feel like you have to climb to leadership because someone else thinks you should climb to leadership. But if it's something that you feel like you want to do, then start to put those habits into your life. And so that that's some really good advice that you actually just gave there, which is be a proponent for yourself. Even if you're not ready, start putting yourself in that position to have those opportunities because you never know when you're gonna learn something, just because you're present.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that's good advice. So, yeah, you know, what speaking of tech, you've seen, you know, both you and I came sounds like we came into tech around the same time frame. So there's been a lot that's changed over, you know, 15, 20 years, and a lot has changed in the last year or 2. You know, you start talking about AI and all that kind of stuff. So what's your vision for the future?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Are you always one of those on the forefront of technology? I think Pedro bought the r one Rabbit, which is a brand new AI device. But do you always try and embrace new technology? Do you kind of skirt the outsides to see what other people are doing with it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I think I'm a little more of a scooter. I I like keeping up with things, and I always have the the thought whenever I've seen I think, like, we all have maybe a a character, like, you know, the sort of person to which someone would say, okay, boomer. You know? The the idea of someone who's so fixed in their ways, they that all modern music is shit and, kids these days and nobody wants to work and all those kind of things you hear. Like, how did you become that kind of person?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, we've had that kind of person throughout every generation, and I don't wanna be that person. And so, similarly, in technology, you know, I have my formative era of what I got good at and what I was excited about, and there are certain branches off of those things that I spent most of my time on that I continue to be excited about innovations in. And, of course, no one has time to sort of be fully on top of every new innovation that's out there. So I often have a feeling that I should be more on top of things, but also, like, keeping an openness and and an excitement about how other people are using things, I think, is is still important to have. I could do more of it, but at least, I think I'm maintaining the idea of of openness.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I I am definitely surrounded by people who do a great job of more quickly embracing and tinkering with something new. And so, you know, I'm sort of maybe getting a secondhand keeping up by by keeping up with them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Are there are are there any of these technologies that you're you've seen make an impact at, you know, at Netflix or any other companies recently?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I think the generative AI one is interesting for, like, specifically in writing code. I I gave a talk about this, a little over a year ago in which I expressed a lot of, if not skepticism, at least in encouraging people to pump their brakes on embracing it too quickly. Because, for instance, with writing code, you can only trust the output of an LLM when you can actually verify it. And so paradoxically, in order to make use of it, you have to kind of be able to do it on your own.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, also, there are time savings to be had. There are so many sort of, like, we still bump into boilerplate all the time, and to have something where you can, automate for yourself the repetitive things, you know, the the why should I be typing the same syntax over and over again perhaps when there's some way I can automate the snippet or the generation of it or say, hey. Write me a unit test for this thing. And to incorporate some of that without fully relying on it, I think, is something that I need to get better at and is a good skill to have. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That one is, I think, like, dominating the airways right now, and I think that the people who will make the most of it, maintain sort of, like, a little bit of a healthy distance. Like, they use it for what it is, but don't see it as, true artificial intelligence yet or or replacing their job. I think the other thing that, that I have isn't necessarily the future, maybe it's sort of standard now, but the idea of design tools that have less of a barrier to entry. So I am a big Figma user. Before that, it was InVision and Sketch and and those.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And and, of course, like, I grew up with Photoshop and Adobe Suite. And, you know, spending every day in Photoshop, I got used to it and I can move around quickly, but it's difficult to learn that kind of thing. And the way design tools have shifted to you don't need to have spent 20 hours in this to learn how to do it. Everyone can participate in from lo fi to hi fi, getting their ideas in a visual form and building from there. I think that in all its various forms has been incredibly valuable, and I am glad to see that continuing to happen.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's so much engineering and design work within companies, even Netflix, where a lo fi, low code kind of way to do something is the really smart way to do it. And, I think that the more people who are encouraged to think of themselves as doing design work, if not necessarily being designers, is a really healthy thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I can tell you from firsthand experience, like, I used Sketch actually to design my first startups, like MVP app. Right? And I just kinda wireframe the whole thing out and gave it to the engineers, and we're like, make this happen. This looks good.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there were some elements of that design, like, found in some kinda, you know, kit I downloaded, like, some UI elements that I had pieced together and changed around a little bit. But you're right. It was and that allowed us to launch our app in this, like, you know, it wasn't completely no code, but, definitely low code in in the sense of me designing the front end and just handing it to the engineers to to make happen. So it definitely accelerated our development and put a product out faster. So, yeah, I\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: think\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: it's super important.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: And there's still a need for pros who are great at design, and and that won't go away. But the, lowering the barrier to entry, I think, has been amazing. Tools that continue to lower the barrier to entry to producing something, to getting the satisfaction of the thing I built I can see on screen, is great.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a great point. I also learned Photoshop and Illustrator, and I can still use those today. But for example, I'm actually I'm not gonna show it off in camera, but I'm wearing a shirt that I used AI to create 2 images, front and back. Took me 30 seconds when that would have taken me an illustrator, you know, 40 minutes, if if not more.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But like you said, when you talk about programming and using AI for programming, you still have to know what you're doing because AI is not even anywhere to the point where people claim it can be. So it's smart to have that sort of healthy skepticism both with that type of a trend like AI, but I think in general, I think skirting the out or or, you know, skirting the edges of anything that you're approaching, whether you're thinking about being a leader or you're thinking about doing x or y. You know? Do your research, understand the pros and cons of anything, and find where it can help, lower the barrier. I think that was another great phrase that you used because, you know, I can have AI draft the first draft, and then I go and clean it up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because robots, I probably shouldn't say this on recording, but robots will never be as great as humans. So, it's but it's yeah. I think it's that was a great term that you used, lowering the barrier.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. So so, you know, you've definitely gone on a a long journey. I think there's been some great advice. I think having, having empathy and, you know, leading on a two way road has been some great advice. So, you know, I guess for those who are listening who either don't know if they wanna be a leader yet or those who do know that they wanna keep climbing the ranks, what's some advice you gave advice for your younger self, but what would be some advice just in general that you would give to people who are out there looking to climb the ranks?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I would say raise your hand, when opportunities arise for anything. Volunteer to help set up your next team on-site. There's an extra project that would, you know, clean up some old data, you know, not to not to take on, so much work that you burn out or that you're sacrificing other parts of your life. But within, your ability to do so, you know, say yes to to things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Those, those opportunities that you get, are not just about the task that you might do. They are about your they provide you this chance to work with other people that you might not have already, to be seen by other people you might not have already. And one of the things that really, some of my close friends had to drill into me, at some point in my career was promote yourself of of, like, don't be so humble and self aware that you don't ever say something nice about the things you're proud of, or that you, hesitate to, say, yes. I can take care of that. And I think even beyond that, you know, my wife, will frequently point out, what she used phrases, my white boy confidence, which is just like, oh, sure.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Why not? I could do it. Like, you might have seen the thing recently where, it was, like, 11% of all men surveyed believed that they could totally land a passenger airplane if they had to. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: They could.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: They probably could. Right. Or, like, yeah. I could score a point against Serena Williams. So there's that there's overconfidence, and then I think there's a healthy amount of just a little bit more confidence than you actually maybe know you can back up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so that, for me, has been helpful of I I used the example planning on-site. That's something I'm involved in right now. And am I do I have a track record of doing that before or having to do that? Like, little aspects maybe, not not to the size of of the one that I'm helping with right now. But I raised my hand and said yes, because this is gonna give me a chance to collaborate with some other people on bringing this thing together.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It is fun to do some of this work to ensure that on those days, it is a valuable, engaging, worthwhile, fun experience for everybody. And even selfishly as part of my career, now there are more people, assuming I do a good job with this, who have seen me do a good job at this and have, gotten to see that I care and and putting some energy and bringing some ideas towards this thing. And whenever you have a chance to do that, that is, that's part of it. Being offered a leadership position, which is really what a lot of, you know, a lot of our our fortunes in life are dependent on what we do, and a lot of them are depending are dependent on what other people decide to do. And especially when we're talking about careers and jobs, almost always, it is someone else who is going to make a decision to hire you, to promote you, and they have to base that on something.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And when you have been seen to be an empathetic, you know, knowledgeable, skilled person in all these various ways that go beyond just the code that you're writing, the systems that you can understand and talk about. All of those feed into the possibility of you getting to whatever level it is that you want to advance to.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That's that's great advice. So speaking about promoting yourself, where else, you know, can the listeners go find you after this? You know, they've seen this video. They've heard this conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Where else can they find your you know, follow your journey and, and learn more about you? This is a great time to mention that the\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: that this is something I don't do a good job at yet. But so I have a I have a website, which as many of us, gets updated whenever I'm looking for a new job. And I've had a few updates since then. But, otherwise, I am not widely active online right now. Most of my time right now is spent, on my job, spending time with my wife and my dogs.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm remodeling my office. So it's in sort of a lull of of personal promotion and and visibility. But there there are a few things. I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me at Simmer there.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so if you're interested in reaching out or talking more, you can send me a message there. Otherwise, my website, Simmer dot 0 0. When I first came across that domain extension, it was like, sweet. My portfolio site, with that, people are gonna have to say, oh.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Of course,\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: OO probably means out of office, which is also you know? Yeah. Yeah. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That's where you can find your nature photography.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You're out of options.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: O o o. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I've got some of my past work there. And when I get to writing, which has been a goal of mine for a while, then it'll start popping up there. Amazing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, yeah, I I think, as I as I say with most of our guests, I definitely learned a lot. I think it's always it's always cool to hear the common threads that everybody has, but also each individual story. Everyone has their own individual story. So it's it's definitely it was really cool to hear your journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What I would say is for everyone listening, start go and follow him so that he has to start writing some more, because there were some great there were some great advice. Absolutely. And, I I you know, I I always listen to these podcasts back, but I might actually listen back and take some actual notes because it was it was a good podcast. But we greatly appreciate your time. Start your writing up again so when people follow you, they can actually follow current events.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Update your out of office website, and thank you so much for your time. Any any parting words that you wanna say? Any last pieces of advice?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I I really appreciate you 2 having me on here, and I think just say yes to things when you when you have the ability is is my advice. That's that's why I'm literally here talking to you as well right now. So yeah. Yeah. Say yes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Have empathy.\u003C/p>","Remember the first time I, like, normalized a relational database. There was this clouds parting, feeling of of, like, I'm smart and I got this thing, and it feels so good to to see the elegance of it. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks. We've been graced with the presence of David today. John and Pedro here as well. Don't don't worry. We're still here for this conversation as well. But, David, I'd love for you to give yourself a brief introduction. Let the world know who you are. Just brief because we're gonna definitely dive into your background. So but let the world know who you are. You got it. I am employed right now as a senior engineer at Netflix. I'm in the consumer foundations team, but I spent, nearly the first 4 years there in the engineering. And outside that, I have a list of hobbies that's about 5 miles long. Amazing. Yeah. We'll we'll definitely wanna get to that. But maybe at first, like, you know, what could you take us back to the the moment that kinda ignited your passion for, you know, blending technology and and design and, you know, kind of what got you into technology and into the space in the first place? For sure. For me, it was a student job in college. I got a job in the AV department, and it turned out to also be the IT department, which tells you something about when that was and how small things were at the time. And what got me into that was as a student at that college attempting to use the online scheduling tool that they'd built to just figure out what my class schedule is gonna be for for the term. And, the two things I noticed, most strongly about it were that it was ugly and hard to use. And I started asking, could someone change this? And then that question turned into, can I change this? And one of the great fortunate circumstances of my life was that the person in charge said, sure. Here's something you can change, and that was really the start. And and those two things, like, ugly and hard to use are really the the the converse, which is beautiful and nice to use is just continues to be a motivation. Amazing. Yeah. I was I was gonna I was gonna make a joke that half the technology out there today still is ugly and hard to use. So you saw you saw that problem 20 something years ago, which is pretty awesome. Did you have any technical experience before that or maybe just tinkering on a a computer every now and then? Or or you just saw something ugly and you wanted to fix it? Only a little bit. I had taken a rudimentary Photoshop course at Kinko's, before I owned a computer. And then, you know, just really basic stuff. I think a friend had had me over and been like, this is email, and here's how to get on AOL. But, other than that, a little bit of tinkering with, like, a hand me down DOS computer and a little bit of work on trail. That was it. So it really was just the motivation of, I don't know how to do it, but I would like to learn, and I have some, you know, I have even though I don't know anything yet, I have some ideas about how that maybe this could be better, and that was the start. Mhmm. Got it. Did have you since taken any sort of formal sort of design or UX UI, dove into that space? Not not in the terms of, like, higher education or degree programs. So I I went to school originally to be a chiropractor. I wish I'd had better career advice or maybe had had changed tech earlier, but, I I have a, like, science and biology education, in undergrad, and all of my tech learning was, you know, the sir the term self taught is usually applied, but, this is something I mentioned a lot. I am taught by all the thousands of other people in this industry who love and are excited about what they do and who are delighted to write articles and make online courses and, produce demos showing how to do things with various technology. And so I have always loved, like, the design aspect. My mom, had an art background, and so I was homeschooled as a kid, and so she made sure to incorporate that. And I always I always really enjoyed that part. But the actual melding of design and tech, that was just this exciting new field that there was, you know, there were so many resources out there, to consume that that's really where that came about. What what was the because I also got into technology kind of probably around the same time frame, and I was in school for design. Sure. But I remember back then, there wasn't there wasn't as many forums or definitely wasn't as many videos or boot camps, all those stuff that's out there today. What did you rely on? You know, you you took on you were going to school for chiropractory and science. I don't think that's even a word, chiropractory. I like it. But you were going to school but you're going to school for something different, and you took on this tech project. How did you learn to build I looked at your LinkedIn, and you built a CMS. You built everything that was needed. How did you find how how to do that back then? You know? Because I had people in person in school. I was going to school for that, but there wasn't forums. You know? Were you in communities in person asking these questions, or did you find some online forums to ask questions? It was there was a little bit. I remember, the, Jeffrey Zeltman's resource was a huge, or, like, his both his personal writing and then a list of part, which is a heavily CSS and, like, web standard sort of resource. That was one of my main go to's. And from there, that is really how I think I I you know, you could say I got my UI design education by their emphasis on not just, hey. This is beautiful and here are principal's design. I mean, they mentioned those things, and, clearly, a a lot of the people in the community cared about that kind of stuff. But the, the larger point of so much of their writing and their tutorials and their excitement about, like, CSS becoming the main way to style things and and and the accessibility benefits of that versus the old clutches we were using to try to get things layout on screen that totally ignored the concerns of screen readers or assistive devices or anything else was this, it needs to be nice for humans to use. And it being beautiful is sometimes a companion, sometimes as a side effect to that, but that the primary thing is here's how to make it nice for him to use. And, also, by the way, here's how to have it kind of be more pleasant as a developer. You get that that mental satisfaction of having done this in a way that is elegant. Again, that that elegance, you know, can turn into cleverness and be awful in a lot of ways, but that was always a side effect of doing building things in a way that are pleasant for humans to use. Yeah. And that and that makes sense. I think that was that's sort of, like, the turning point for technology become more widely adopted, right, with the PC and, kind of personal computing. And still companies today are pushing that forward. Like, a company that could take something very technical and and and just make it user friendly and beautiful as I I don't know. The the example I always think of is, like, Square. Right? Like, there have been payment processors and credit card terminals and all these things, but they made a very simple, smart little thing that had a beautiful, simple design and Yeah. Captured a ton of market share by just doing that, like, leading with design. Yeah. It felt like the future instead of this awkward thing that beeps ain't really at you. It was just nice and yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. But there I I think all the time about, like, this sort of if you build it, they will come aspect of, like, you can kind of fall into that trap as a designer engineer where you just think, if I just build the beautiful thing, my marketing and business viability and all those other problems will solve themselves, which, of course, is your however, like, that do build something beautiful is still something worth hanging on. Yeah. You've that's a good point to make. You know, you've you see a problem. You make it beautiful. You make it usable, and and people will gravitate towards it naturally. Nice analogy, Pedro. I use Square myself. So it definitely I've I've found the the simplicity as well as ease of use, important. You've been on this long journey, not long, but you've been on this, wide ranging journey of different types of roles. I mean, even starting from chiropractor school to doing a c a CMS, and now you're at Netflix. And there's been a long journey along the way. What do you look for when you're looking for new projects or new roles, whether it's internal where you're at or, external companies? You know? What do you gravitate towards? Do you gravitate towards somewhere where you know you can fix problems, or do you gravitate towards somewhere where you know you can grow as an employee and as as a engineer designer? You know, what I guess, what ranks importance for you when you're looking for new projects and roles? Having, like, a baked in change of scenery or having having a change of scenery every so often has always been really important to me. I had, for a while, when I in one of my first roles, I was working for a small company. I probably stayed there longer than I should have. I had a bunch of friends, who were in agencies, and they had this sort of mental turnover of new clients, new projects that kept them interested in tackling new things. And I really started to desire that. And so that, for me, has been a motivator in finding new things. In fact, it was and being the reason I left that company and set out to freelance for a while. I, rely on money to pay for the things that I enjoy and and, need to live in life. So that's also a motivator. But, really, you know, that that aside, I think there is a blend of the 2. So when I found the role I was hired into at Netflix when I read that job description, it described it used all of the words that I was looking for in terms of the the mission of the role and what I'd be working with and the variety that was baked into it. And so that was one of the exciting things. But I think what, also really drew me to that was that it was on a team of people who had a wide variety of skills, but where my skills weren't sort of fully representative, weren't already duplicated by somebody else. And so it was gonna be that chance to to bring the things I knew that I was good at, and to to add them there. I I didn't come to it that role with the feeling of, though, that, like, I got this. I'll show them, you know, what's going on. It was it was very much the opposite of, okay. This is the role that sounds awesome, but, of course, it's Netflix. And, you know, I'm not ready. Maybe they'll give me more time to prepare. And, of course, you know, the interview, you know, was like, can you come talk next week? And so I, you know, I I put a lot of effort into it, but it was that, that combination of this is, this is an amazing opportunity. It's exactly what I wanna do that I think really spurred, you know, really putting a lot of focus and effort into into that interview process there. Yeah. And it and it seems like throughout your career, you've kind of transitioned between different roles and different industries. And now at Netflix, like, what what experience do you think was the most important or the most pivotal in shaping your approach to leadership that that you're sort of in it in that position now? Sure. There's been a few things. I I think the the progression I've been I've made in my career, the opportunities that I've had have been, thanks to other people who kind of already understood it. One of the people I think of a lot is is a old boss of mine, Gunther, at that first company, who in our one on ones, instead of it being project recap time, he made sure that we were talking about what did I want to do in my career and what was I interested in long term beyond this company, beyond working for him. And then fast forward a few, and there was a moment where I was a more senior engineer on a relatively small team. And there was really a need, in order to make our junior engineers more effective. It wasn't going to be sort of teaching them in the sense of, hey. Here's how you do complicated things. They already had a lot of of skill at the technical things that they were taking on. Where, leadership was needed was for someone like me to do the glue work as it's, been described of, you know, a little bit of private project management, a lot of, taking care of some, you know, just sort of, like, unblocking chores for the team, being ahead of things like that, setting a a direction, you know, in cases where there was some ambiguity, providing, at least a decision and some reasoning, that we can all act on from there. Yeah. I think it was seeing examples of other people and then just kind of realizing that there's this need and this is that by serving these other people on the team, that is actually a huge part of being a leader. And, and it was satisfying to start doing that. You know? In in isolation, the idea of of just, like, project management work sometimes feels boring or a chore or something you wanna procrastinate, on. But when you are multiplying the happiness and and effectiveness of other people by doing that, then it becomes satisfying. Yeah. I that's a common thread that we've heard in a lot of these conversations that we've had is people who have worked their way up to some form of leadership. They've had good leaders, a lot of good leaders along the way. Some of them have had not great leaders, but, they all have this drive, and I I think it's ingrained in them by those good leaders. I think good leaders today have been trained by good leaders. So do you enjoy leading more now, or do you enjoy getting your hands, you know, in and doing coding and designing still, a mixture of both? Some people prefer, you know, to train people and lead them like a true leader should, but some people still miss getting in their getting their hands in the dirt and and doing development work. So do you still get a mixture of those, and do you like that combination, or do you prefer 1 or the other? Yeah. I do still get a mixture. I do still love that mixture. I I often think about this because definitely the part of me, the engineer designer who loves building things, can very much get in the zone on a feature and be very happy, you know, towing away there and making it really awesome. And what I have to remind myself of is, like, I do have a desire to be a a good leader, a good engineering leader. And I often have this feeling that and this is probably something, you know, I was gonna say, real leaders also still still feel what that that feeling of, like, well, I'm I I don't have as much experience or as much to give there yet or, you know, I'm not I want to be, but I'm not yet. And I think that that awareness isn't all bad, but also that just saying, well, I'm not a leader yet isn't necessarily helpful because I am doing things that are, leading other folks. For instance, I'm I'm frequently mentoring a junior engineer on our team right now, who is awesome, but there's so much about being a software engineer that isn't necessarily computer science. And a lot of those things, like, we are working together on, and it doesn't feel like me wagging my finger at Hertz. We're talking about these things, and I am able to provide that. And I love doing that. I think one of the things that's essential if you want to do that is to make sure that you have some time set aside to do that. If I get so attached to my feature work and building the thing and then realize, like, oh, it's 1 minute until my 1 on 1, with the person I'm mentoring. Okay. Well, I'll just ask her how things are going. Then not only have I will I probably not do as, I probably won't be as good a resource for her, but also I've short changed myself on putting having some time to think ahead about what is important here, even even if there wasn't mentorship involved. For me to spend more time thinking ahead about the strategy for the project I'm working on, where I fit in my organization, how I see roles shifting, or the importance of teams, or how a strategy doc that I read might affect our team. Those are the things that leaders do. And if you begin spending the time doing the things that leaders do, either you'll find yourself being equipped to be a leader or you'll find yourself actually being in a leadership position, because you began acting that way. And that's that's really the the approach I've been trying to take. You know, I I love getting to have a 1 on 1 with a director or, you know, like, several skip levels up. And and I'm always asking, like, how did you get here? But it's not just what did you do to get here. It's what circumstances got you here, and what do you spend your time doing. And these these roles that I, you know, possibly aspire to have one day, I'd like to be, at least able to think like a person who has that role now even when it's not my role yet. Because without that reflection and beginning to get yourself in the mindset of that different role, it's extremely unlikely someone's gonna come along and be like, great work building that thing. You're gonna direct some people now. So that's that's the mindset I've tried to take. Yeah. I think it's important also as you as people continue to to climb upward in their, you know, personal and professional trajectory to to remember because you had mentioned, feeling like you might not be qualified or feeling like you don't know everything to be in a position that you might be in. I think it's important for people to realize that nobody nobody knows everything, and what you just mentioned there still having time to reach out to your superiors to to ask those same type as a questions that you're passing that information down to people who you're training as well. I think it's important to remember growing as a human and growing as a employee and growing as just whatever you're in, whatever field you're in, it's a two way street. You know, you learn from those who have been there before, and that's kind of the reason of this podcast. And then you you pass that information down to those that you're training. So do you these days, I assume it's probably a different answer than if you'd answered this 15 years ago. Do you find more satisfaction in a junior engineer that you're training, get unstuck from a bug that they've been trying to fix or get promoted, or do you find more enjoyment in fixing a a major bug yourself? I assume it's probably seeing those that you're training, you know, get to the next stage in their development. Right. Like, it's it's tough to answer because it's still still joy in both, but I think you're right that it is the the latter because that's beyond that there's a a bigger effect that cascades far beyond that I, you know, unstuck a button that that wasn't working. Yeah. To see another person take off. And especially, like, there's there's so much joy. You know, I I had mentioned that I had been in a in one career and then switched. And in in down moments, I have phrased it as I wasted those years of my life. That's not true, of course, because the person I am now is built out of those experiences. But one of the things that I get a lot of joy out and mention explicitly to younger engineers that I see, is that I'm so stoked that they are, like, getting started now. At work and especially for those who are really good at customer empathy and being curious and, thinking about strategic things and the health of the team and and sort of the work beyond just the the work itself that they are going to go so far. And especially, you know, when I, like, I when I run into these sorts of folks at Netflix, I'm even more excited of like, for me, it feels like this amazing place to work where, I I finally got here, but after quite a long time in my career at, you know, you could say, like, smaller companies. I mean, smaller companies. It felt it felt like a a personally, like, such a huge achievement to make this this prospective company. And, I am so stoked to see young engineers getting jobs at, like, awesome companies and getting to start learning from amazing people way earlier than I did. It's it's so cool to see that, and I love being a part of that. Yeah. Stoked. I haven't heard that word in a while, so I I I appreciate the usage of that word. I mean, if you also, if you train people who are you, you know, who are your ment mentees, they'll do a lot of the work that then will possibly or potentially even enable you to then get more hands on in the code and and start fixing things because they're they're being smart enough and self sufficient enough to solve some problems that maybe a leader who hasn't trained their employees, would have to solve all of those problems. So I guess in a in a way, it probably helps you actually get back into coding and fixing bugs if you're training people to do some of that forward thinking leadership type stuff. Totally. And, you know, there's so much that I still don't know or things where, you know, if I was just working by myself, I'd be looking up. Of course, the the great secret of of senior engineers is that we're still googling everything. And to do that in front of a junior engineer, I think, is a really helpful experience too to say I don't know. Or, you know, I've used this 4 times, or I configure this thing once a year when I set up a new whatever it is. And I don't remember what I was doing, so let's pull up in the documentation together and walk through it, and, you know, we'll we'll figure out how to do this again. Or that thing you're you're dealing with could be this, this, and this. It's not those. Okay. I don't have a ready answer off the top of my head, but you do a little more investigation. I will as well. Let's talk again in a couple hours and see if we've gotten anywhere. And that's that's what being an engineer is all the time, and, it is freeing to, be able to admit that. And, also, like, that would be a a chance for my own growth and my own either remembering how to do the technical task or, in the larger sense, just reminding myself that there's, there's I'm I there's so much I don't know. There's so much I'm gonna forget to remember and just it's I think it's so valuable for anyone who hasn't figured that out yet to get a glimpse into. That's just always that's gonna be how it is throughout your career. You don't have to feel bad about not knowing right away because 20 years from now, you still won't know anything right away. Yeah. The other thing that's interesting that you mentioned is empathy because it's it's something that we don't typically think about as a, you know, an engineering skill. Right? You think about the technical skills associated. But would you say that empathy and ABC's some of these other skills are, just as important or maybe more important as engineers are making their way, you know, up through the ranks or, you know, in different roles, within organizations? Yeah. Absolutely. Because there's so much, like, delightfulness and fun in embracing and understanding a complex thing. I remember the first time I, like, normalized a relational database. There was this clouds parting, feeling of of, like, I'm smart, and I got this thing, and it feels so good to to see the elegance of it. So there's plenty of pleasure there. But, I think once you get out of just building something for its own sake or learning a technology or or kind of seeing how clever you can get with your understanding of a knowledge of a language that you know well, Ultimately, you're going to be engineering things, designing things for someone else to use. You may be several layers removed from, let's say, a customer outside your company. In my case, you know, productivity engineering, your your customers are other engineers inside the company. And so still that, that aspect of empathy is necessary for a couple things. 1 is just that when you have gotten a request for something to be built, something to be changed, You could just take it exactly as it's written and knock out that thing and feel like you check the box and move the Jira store over to the done column. But to be good at what you do, the result should really not just be only the thing you were told to do. It should accomplish the purpose of what are we trying to do here. Are we trying to make this simpler for a user? Are we trying to actually make the experience a little higher friction to avoid someone mistakenly deleting something important? There's so many of those ways of thinking about things that that you're designing and engineering. Were to produce the highest quality version of the thing that you were assigned, you need to think through the eyes of the customer, probably the business, you know, understand all the needs that go into that. But then I think in addition to just producing the best version of the thing you could, I think empathy gives you curiosity and excitement and delight and the interest in taking on or suggesting changes that weren't already thought of, that weren't, identified. You can be the person who identifies those things. When you hear the frustration that someone has of, like, like, I have to click this 5 times, and then sometimes that this last step doesn't work. One way it's you could view that is, like, okay. Well, the problem is, like, the the bug is that it breaks at that 5th step depending on a certain scenario. So you could fix that, but, also, is there I have to click 5 things to do this at once? Like, that customer just gave you some very valuable insight into what they're thinking or kind of what they want or what annoys them. And if you're not attuned to catching those kind of things, you might not ever take the time to say, can we rethink how this interaction works so that it's one click? It's it's none. We, you know, make this whole thing more pleasant for the user. We don't just fix the bug that was described. We listened, and we might be able to invent something that really makes this whole thing more pleasant. Yeah. I think I think you're so right. Yeah. Like, that was I think you could have been a chiropractor. Someone says my back hurts, and we kinda find out why their back is actually hurting. Yeah. I think you're so right, though. Sometimes we're so we're so involved, and we're so deep and close to something that we can't zoom out and see the bigger picture, and it does take empathy to do that. I mean, you know, John and I can speak for ourselves, but we're in conversations with folks all the time that are just like, oh, I need this software to check these four boxes. Like, well, hold on. Let's back up and, like, how does this impact you, the organization, the people you work with? Like, what's the actual business outcome, the personal outcome? And I think, engineers thinking that way is is definitely an interesting way to look at it because you can you can actually solve the core problem. Sometimes they're just like, oh, it doesn't like you said, it doesn't work at the 5th step. Well, maybe the whole process is the problem, and it could be reinvented. So that's that's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So what you know, all of working your way up to leadership isn't, roses and daisies. So what kind of, you know, part of this podcast is kind of passing on this advice and and your experiences to people who are listening. So what have been some of the struggles that you you faced? Is it, you know, having to deal with meetings, leadership meetings? I I assume those are I don't know how they are at Netflix, but in in some places, they're not fun. They're just kind of monotonous. But what have been some of the struggles that you've faced as you've worked your way up and and some things that you would say, hey, 15 year younger myself, be aware of this and or do this. Yeah. The first things come to mind are kind of personal habits of, like, giving myself a little too much room to procrastinate, not being as frequent a communicator, an aversion to maintenance. Like, I I was thinking about this recently that I think I have this inbuilt feeling that whenever I, like, buy a thing, it should just continue working forever. And, of course, you have to, like, change oil and dust and clean and, you know, all those may maintenance things. And, I think in similar ways, times where I've done you know, I I was given a chance to lead a thing and I didn't do a great job at it, Oftentimes came down to that of a lack of personal organization. You know, I didn't kind of put in some important work ahead of time, and so I had to scramble to get a result at the end. And sometimes that works out, and sometimes it doesn't. And, in making yourself, you know, not making yourself visible enough or not being a communicator, not chiming in on meetings, I think there's a lot of a lot of times where had I been more aware that just that involvement, which takes work and energy to get yourself to, like, be there with your camera on and and, you know, to really to really be involved and not just, I saw a cartoon someone was like, how to how to, you know, make it appear that you've been contributing me to a meeting is to just say, thanks, everybody, at the end when you haven't said anything to the meeting. I mean, I so I've done that for a while, but I think I think avoiding those habits that require less energy, less investment, and just kind of, working on that is something I wish I'd started earlier. I heard I heard someone say that they've, it was another engineer at Netflix, It's Molly Stroup. She said, I realized that I wouldn't be an effective leader until I was an effective leader from in my own life, and that's really stuck with me of you just your personal inclination to wash the dishes and wipe down the kitchen counter when you'd rather just leave it for somebody else or not do it at all. I think that's that is a great little microcosm of, the kind of things you need to be, just willing to put the time into if you want to be a leader. And, you know, I mentioned I I mentioned, like, being on camera is an offhand thing, and there's plenty of reasons why in meetings. Like, I I'm glad our shift towards remote work and getting used to doing things over Zoom and the reasons why someone might be on camera. I'm not trying to denigrate any of those. But, in the the sort of being if if leadership is something you want to grow into, that putting this extra work in to provide energy and provide involvement to other people is really part of it. Just if you are there with contributions and and the feeling of, like, this is useful to be here and I am bringing my bringing my whole self here. Other people pick up on that, and that I think is is, super valuable. So I wish I'd I wish I'd focused on being that kind of person sooner. Yeah. Yeah. That reminds me, kind of on the opposite spectrum. I I used to work at Dell, and there's a guy who had been in the same position for, I don't know, 15 years, 20 years, something like that. And I asked him one day. His name is Joe. I'll I'll call out someone's name too, Joe O'Brien. I was like, Joe, you've don't you ever wanna, you know, climb up the ranks and be a manager or be a regional manager? He's and he said something he said, I'm really happy with my life, and I really like where I'm at, and so I'm comfortable here. And so I think on the other end of the spectrum, it's and this applies to leadership as well. You kinda have to understand what your personal goals are. Don't feel like you have to climb to leadership because someone else thinks you should climb to leadership. But if it's something that you feel like you want to do, then start to put those habits into your life. And so that that's some really good advice that you actually just gave there, which is be a proponent for yourself. Even if you're not ready, start putting yourself in that position to have those opportunities because you never know when you're gonna learn something, just because you're present. So that's good advice. So, yeah, you know, what speaking of tech, you've seen, you know, both you and I came sounds like we came into tech around the same time frame. So there's been a lot that's changed over, you know, 15, 20 years, and a lot has changed in the last year or 2. You know, you start talking about AI and all that kind of stuff. So what's your vision for the future? Are you always one of those on the forefront of technology? I think Pedro bought the r one Rabbit, which is a brand new AI device. But do you always try and embrace new technology? Do you kind of skirt the outsides to see what other people are doing with it? I think I'm a little more of a scooter. I I like keeping up with things, and I always have the the thought whenever I've seen I think, like, we all have maybe a a character, like, you know, the sort of person to which someone would say, okay, boomer. You know? The the idea of someone who's so fixed in their ways, they that all modern music is shit and, kids these days and nobody wants to work and all those kind of things you hear. Like, how did you become that kind of person? You know, we've had that kind of person throughout every generation, and I don't wanna be that person. And so, similarly, in technology, you know, I have my formative era of what I got good at and what I was excited about, and there are certain branches off of those things that I spent most of my time on that I continue to be excited about innovations in. And, of course, no one has time to sort of be fully on top of every new innovation that's out there. So I often have a feeling that I should be more on top of things, but also, like, keeping an openness and and an excitement about how other people are using things, I think, is is still important to have. I could do more of it, but at least, I think I'm maintaining the idea of of openness. I I am definitely surrounded by people who do a great job of more quickly embracing and tinkering with something new. And so, you know, I'm sort of maybe getting a secondhand keeping up by by keeping up with them. Yeah. Are there are are there any of these technologies that you're you've seen make an impact at, you know, at Netflix or any other companies recently? Yeah. I think the generative AI one is interesting for, like, specifically in writing code. I I gave a talk about this, a little over a year ago in which I expressed a lot of, if not skepticism, at least in encouraging people to pump their brakes on embracing it too quickly. Because, for instance, with writing code, you can only trust the output of an LLM when you can actually verify it. And so paradoxically, in order to make use of it, you have to kind of be able to do it on your own. But, also, there are time savings to be had. There are so many sort of, like, we still bump into boilerplate all the time, and to have something where you can, automate for yourself the repetitive things, you know, the the why should I be typing the same syntax over and over again perhaps when there's some way I can automate the snippet or the generation of it or say, hey. Write me a unit test for this thing. And to incorporate some of that without fully relying on it, I think, is something that I need to get better at and is a good skill to have. Yeah. That one is, I think, like, dominating the airways right now, and I think that the people who will make the most of it, maintain sort of, like, a little bit of a healthy distance. Like, they use it for what it is, but don't see it as, true artificial intelligence yet or or replacing their job. I think the other thing that, that I have isn't necessarily the future, maybe it's sort of standard now, but the idea of design tools that have less of a barrier to entry. So I am a big Figma user. Before that, it was InVision and Sketch and and those. And and, of course, like, I grew up with Photoshop and Adobe Suite. And, you know, spending every day in Photoshop, I got used to it and I can move around quickly, but it's difficult to learn that kind of thing. And the way design tools have shifted to you don't need to have spent 20 hours in this to learn how to do it. Everyone can participate in from lo fi to hi fi, getting their ideas in a visual form and building from there. I think that in all its various forms has been incredibly valuable, and I am glad to see that continuing to happen. There's so much engineering and design work within companies, even Netflix, where a lo fi, low code kind of way to do something is the really smart way to do it. And, I think that the more people who are encouraged to think of themselves as doing design work, if not necessarily being designers, is a really healthy thing. Yeah. I can tell you from firsthand experience, like, I used Sketch actually to design my first startups, like MVP app. Right? And I just kinda wireframe the whole thing out and gave it to the engineers, and we're like, make this happen. This looks good. And there were some elements of that design, like, found in some kinda, you know, kit I downloaded, like, some UI elements that I had pieced together and changed around a little bit. But you're right. It was and that allowed us to launch our app in this, like, you know, it wasn't completely no code, but, definitely low code in in the sense of me designing the front end and just handing it to the engineers to to make happen. So it definitely accelerated our development and put a product out faster. So, yeah, I think it's super important. And there's still a need for pros who are great at design, and and that won't go away. But the, lowering the barrier to entry, I think, has been amazing. Tools that continue to lower the barrier to entry to producing something, to getting the satisfaction of the thing I built I can see on screen, is great. Yeah. That's a great point. I also learned Photoshop and Illustrator, and I can still use those today. But for example, I'm actually I'm not gonna show it off in camera, but I'm wearing a shirt that I used AI to create 2 images, front and back. Took me 30 seconds when that would have taken me an illustrator, you know, 40 minutes, if if not more. But like you said, when you talk about programming and using AI for programming, you still have to know what you're doing because AI is not even anywhere to the point where people claim it can be. So it's smart to have that sort of healthy skepticism both with that type of a trend like AI, but I think in general, I think skirting the out or or, you know, skirting the edges of anything that you're approaching, whether you're thinking about being a leader or you're thinking about doing x or y. You know? Do your research, understand the pros and cons of anything, and find where it can help, lower the barrier. I think that was another great phrase that you used because, you know, I can have AI draft the first draft, and then I go and clean it up. Because robots, I probably shouldn't say this on recording, but robots will never be as great as humans. So, it's but it's yeah. I think it's that was a great term that you used, lowering the barrier. Yeah. Yeah. So so, you know, you've definitely gone on a a long journey. I think there's been some great advice. I think having, having empathy and, you know, leading on a two way road has been some great advice. So, you know, I guess for those who are listening who either don't know if they wanna be a leader yet or those who do know that they wanna keep climbing the ranks, what's some advice you gave advice for your younger self, but what would be some advice just in general that you would give to people who are out there looking to climb the ranks? Yeah. I would say raise your hand, when opportunities arise for anything. Volunteer to help set up your next team on-site. There's an extra project that would, you know, clean up some old data, you know, not to not to take on, so much work that you burn out or that you're sacrificing other parts of your life. But within, your ability to do so, you know, say yes to to things. Those, those opportunities that you get, are not just about the task that you might do. They are about your they provide you this chance to work with other people that you might not have already, to be seen by other people you might not have already. And one of the things that really, some of my close friends had to drill into me, at some point in my career was promote yourself of of, like, don't be so humble and self aware that you don't ever say something nice about the things you're proud of, or that you, hesitate to, say, yes. I can take care of that. And I think even beyond that, you know, my wife, will frequently point out, what she used phrases, my white boy confidence, which is just like, oh, sure. Why not? I could do it. Like, you might have seen the thing recently where, it was, like, 11% of all men surveyed believed that they could totally land a passenger airplane if they had to. You know? They could. They probably could. Right. Or, like, yeah. I could score a point against Serena Williams. So there's that there's overconfidence, and then I think there's a healthy amount of just a little bit more confidence than you actually maybe know you can back up. And so that, for me, has been helpful of I I used the example planning on-site. That's something I'm involved in right now. And am I do I have a track record of doing that before or having to do that? Like, little aspects maybe, not not to the size of of the one that I'm helping with right now. But I raised my hand and said yes, because this is gonna give me a chance to collaborate with some other people on bringing this thing together. It is fun to do some of this work to ensure that on those days, it is a valuable, engaging, worthwhile, fun experience for everybody. And even selfishly as part of my career, now there are more people, assuming I do a good job with this, who have seen me do a good job at this and have, gotten to see that I care and and putting some energy and bringing some ideas towards this thing. And whenever you have a chance to do that, that is, that's part of it. Being offered a leadership position, which is really what a lot of, you know, a lot of our our fortunes in life are dependent on what we do, and a lot of them are depending are dependent on what other people decide to do. And especially when we're talking about careers and jobs, almost always, it is someone else who is going to make a decision to hire you, to promote you, and they have to base that on something. And when you have been seen to be an empathetic, you know, knowledgeable, skilled person in all these various ways that go beyond just the code that you're writing, the systems that you can understand and talk about. All of those feed into the possibility of you getting to whatever level it is that you want to advance to. Yeah. That's that's great advice. So speaking about promoting yourself, where else, you know, can the listeners go find you after this? You know, they've seen this video. They've heard this conversation. Where else can they find your you know, follow your journey and, and learn more about you? This is a great time to mention that the that this is something I don't do a good job at yet. But so I have a I have a website, which as many of us, gets updated whenever I'm looking for a new job. And I've had a few updates since then. But, otherwise, I am not widely active online right now. Most of my time right now is spent, on my job, spending time with my wife and my dogs. I'm remodeling my office. So it's in sort of a lull of of personal promotion and and visibility. But there there are a few things. I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me at Simmer there. And so if you're interested in reaching out or talking more, you can send me a message there. Otherwise, my website, Simmer dot 0 0. When I first came across that domain extension, it was like, sweet. My portfolio site, with that, people are gonna have to say, oh. Of course, OO probably means out of office, which is also you know? Yeah. Yeah. So That's where you can find your nature photography. You're out of options. O o o. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I've got some of my past work there. And when I get to writing, which has been a goal of mine for a while, then it'll start popping up there. Amazing. Awesome. Well, yeah, I I think, as I as I say with most of our guests, I definitely learned a lot. I think it's always it's always cool to hear the common threads that everybody has, but also each individual story. Everyone has their own individual story. So it's it's definitely it was really cool to hear your journey. What I would say is for everyone listening, start go and follow him so that he has to start writing some more, because there were some great there were some great advice. Absolutely. And, I I you know, I I always listen to these podcasts back, but I might actually listen back and take some actual notes because it was it was a good podcast. But we greatly appreciate your time. Start your writing up again so when people follow you, they can actually follow current events. Update your out of office website, and thank you so much for your time. Any any parting words that you wanna say? Any last pieces of advice? I I really appreciate you 2 having me on here, and I think just say yes to things when you when you have the ability is is my advice. That's that's why I'm literally here talking to you as well right now. So yeah. Yeah. Say yes. Have empathy.","c8610be2-7db5-44e7-8a51-89078647ecb3",[305,306,307],"c023b9c9-82cf-4d7f-b405-586ae9b6e5d6","045d933f-b70f-4abb-8f3a-2d2b146b1519","6b32879b-7c61-4e65-8090-17610f59028f",[],{"id":134,"number":135,"show":122,"year":136,"episodes":310},[138,139,140,141,142],{"id":140,"slug":312,"vimeo_id":313,"description":314,"tile":315,"length":316,"resources":8,"people":8,"episode_number":131,"published":317,"title":318,"video_transcript_html":319,"video_transcript_text":320,"content":8,"seo":321,"status":130,"episode_people":322,"recommendations":326,"season":327},"jordan-cutler","947424116","In this episode of Trace Talks, Jordan Cutler shares his journey from intern to Senior Software Engineer at Pinterest. He discusses overcoming imposter syndrome after not getting a return offer from Twitter, and how he quickly advanced at Gusto by focusing on being a reliable team member. Jordan emphasizes the importance of curiosity, seeking feedback, and understanding the intricacies of tools and technologies. He also talks about his passion for teaching through his High Growth Engineer newsletter and courses.","b55ab912-f6ff-40f1-a757-40dce11b8e7d",33,"2024-06-13","Jordan Cutler, Senior Software Engineer at Pinterest","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: If you accept that there will always be room to grow, then there you will never be afraid of feedback.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Alright, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks. We have Jordan with us today. Jordan, I'll let you do an introduction on yourself. Just give us a brief background into who you are, where you're from, maybe your favorite, winter activity since we're recording this during the winter.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then after that, we'll kind of dive into the conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Alright. Yeah. Sounds good. Yeah. My name is Jordan.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm a senior software engineer. I'm primarily doing front end right now, but I've been all across the stack. I started at, my career, like, my full time career at Gusto. It's about might have been 4, 5 years ago now, something like that. And I quickly, you know, climbed up the ranks to senior engineer.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, more recently in the past year, I've kind of been writing about that journey, helping, others try to do the same and learn how to level up, go from junior to mid level, then from mid level to senior. And then finally, I've also, you know, just been exploring a bunch of different avenues. One of them right now is a is a course. So I've, you know, started doing, teaching through a cohort course on on Maven, and it's called mid level to senior engineer. I forget if I mentioned that I'm from Philly, but, my favorite, winter activity is probably stumbling through the snow as I'm walking to anywhere I wanna try to get to, because I refuse to wear anything other than my sneakers.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You you get the crunch the crunch under your sneakers.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: But, yes, thanks so much for the introduction. It's so funny to hear somebody say, you know, back at the beginning of my career, and you said 4 or 5 years ago. When I say that phrase, that was 15 years ago. So, what a what a yeah. I think that'd be a great place to start.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? You you've advanced pretty quickly in your career and as as a software engineer. So if you could, let us know about 4 or 5 years ago at the beginning of your career journey. Let us understand how you made that that quick trajectory from junior engineer, essentially, to senior engineer so quickly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's it's not all sunshine and rainbows. I mean, in fact, like, when I first started my first job at Gusto, I was kind of feeling a bit of imposter syndrome, because, before that I had done 2 Twitter internships, which you might think, wow, you did 2 Twitter internships and you're feeling imposter syndrome? Well, the thing is is on, you know, on that second Twitter internship, I didn't get a return offer. And, you know, that was kinda like a devastating blow to, oh my gosh.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, am I gonna be you you you thought you had everything sort of figured out and then it's like, oh, you know, is there something wrong with me? What did I what did I do wrong? Am I gonna get a job at one of these places that I've always dreamt about and all that stuff? And, to get the job at Gusto, I I was very excited, but at the same time, I was scared that the same thing would happen again. You know, maybe they let go of me within 3 months or something like that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I I I took a lot of the lessons from that experience and what I feel like I did wrong, to not get that return offer going into Gusto. It was almost sort of a blessing in a way. I mean, like, I mean, I I as long as you learn from it. Right? And so one of the things that I remember distinctly sort of being one of my, like, guiding principles is to not try to, like, overshoot too much, and instead to just, like, try to be normal.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, try to be, like, a normal person in the team, but, like, show how you're kinda contributing. Right? Like, rather than try to be the hero, you know, always and, you know, try to appear like you're smarter than you are or anything like that. Instead, I just felt like, I tried to be the contributing, you know, entry level member of the team, respecting the people, you know, above me, their opinion, and, you know, what what guidance they have, doing the projects that are assigned to me, and just doing them really well rather than trying to, you know, like, change the whole system and, you know, be better, you know, and, like, that that can be done later when maybe, you know, you're at the staff level and, like, you really need to improve things from a foundational perspective.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. You you speak to, something that we don't typically talk about on this podcast, but something that we all deal with every day, which is sort of rejection or our ideas of rejection. Like, you maybe thought you were on this course to do this one thing. And like you said, fortunately, it led you this other path, and and and it turned out to be probably or maybe the better scenario. But we we all face, like, a lot of rejection in our lives, especially John and I, you know, in on the sales side.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Of course, it's, like, 90% dealing with rejection, which is just part of the job. But, it'd be interesting to know, you know, through that first of all, with the the Twitter experience, was it was it a a rejection of you, or was that just that your interpretation of it at the time? Or maybe there were external factors that contributed to it that it really wasn't like, oh, I didn't get the callback. It had nothing to do with me. It was maybe organization restructuring or, like, something else.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And speak to, like, the psychology of of that. Like, damn, this is a crushing blow to me, but maybe it actually doesn't have anything to do with me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Definitely. I mean, there there was some elements at the time where, I wasn't really sure about it a 100 percent because there was other people who didn't get the offer as well. And there were, I think, talks of, like, maybe there were certain limitations on the number of return offers, that they they could give for some reason. But I do know that even in those circumstances, even if maybe you are, you know, it's almost kinda like when you hit the end of the year, and you just, like, start to have that mindset shift of, like, alright, what are my goals gonna be, you know, for the the next year?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, it's kinda like that in a way where it's just kinda a reality check regardless where it's, you know, what what could I have done better? So that way, regardless of the situation from Twitter's end, I could have done my part the best that I possibly could. And I don't feel like I did like, if I take that time to reflect on that, there were tons of things that I felt like I I could have done better, on that end.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think maybe that's the the takeaway here. It's really about, like, whether it's, you know, wholly our responsibility or not, it's we can at least learn from these things and taking the time to reflect can make us grow. Like, every time we're, you know, I lose an opportunity or something like that, I'd take a sit down and say, like, okay. What part of this was in my control?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What part was out of my control? And how can I, you know, improve myself in the future so that this I can minimize this at least from the things that are in my control? So it sounds like it's, you know, reflecting is that valuable time you do after something like that that kinda sets you up for the next stage of the career, I guess.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I would say that that's a that's a huge, like, lesson in general as part of the career growth. There's always gonna be tons of things that aren't in your control.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, just to give, like, a practical example, I wrote, like, a post yesterday about estimates. A lot of people complain about when you give estimates, people interpret it as deadlines. Well, what are you doing maybe that could potentially give that impression? You know, maybe if you like, someone asked you, hey. How long do you think like this would take?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And you say it in a way where it's like, I think if I worked on it, it would take me, like, 3 days. And, like, if you say it like that versus, well, if I were to just give a rough ballpark number right now, then, you know, my guess would be 3 days. But if you wanted me to give you a more accurate number, then let you know, give me some time to to look into it. Like, if you say it like that, well, then it's a much different impression that the person receives. And so even if you could blame them for, you know, can't you know, making it a deadline when it really wasn't, well, what what could you do, like, on your part to make sure that that's as clear as possible?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, basically, don't pull an Elon and tell everyone full self driving is coming in a year when it's 2016.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Uh-huh. Exactly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Well, at least at least the Cybertruck finally came out. You know, it might have taken 4 years for that, but it's here. You you mentioned your, you you mentioned writing a post, and I I think that's a good segue into who you are publicly. You know, you are, I guess, a engineer influencer. I don't I don't even know what those terms are anymore.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, I I've read a lot of your articles, and I think there's a lot of lessons that you you share, you know, about being a go to player and and taking rejection and all of those types of posts. Why did you originally start posting to social media and LinkedIn, and then you now have a, a newsletter that goes out? So I'd love to understand how I I typically perceive engineers as a little bit kind of quieter and typically don't post those types of things. But was it some of the lessons that you learned early on that made you want to be more social and share those experiences, or was there different reason that you started posting and and started the newsletter?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a great question. I mean, it's it's hard to pinpoint, like, one exact thing, but I do remember, like, where it started. And, you know, the it started from, one single post, and it had nothing to do with, like, what I write about now, actually.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It was, you know, it was on accessibility, like, alt text. And, I think, like, at the time, I was thinking that previously at at my, you know, at Gusto, I had started a channel that was called, Jordan's Front End Learnings, and it was essentially like, me just taking notes, but, like, kinda sharing it in a way that could be consumed, like, more broadly rather than just, like, a brain dump, you know, of things. And it would almost be, like, little mini lessons. And I would, like, write, you know, in there as I learn stuff because I wanted to learn more about front end. And, like, over time, you know, people started to join that, And, it kinda opened my eyes a little bit of, like, oh, okay.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, people like, I'm not even really trying. And people seem to enjoy some of these, like, this sort of, like, learning community, you know, like, and eventually it got up to, like, 50 people and it started, you know, from 0 where I'm just like not even advertising it, like just kind of spread through word-of-mouth a little bit. And it made me think, well, like, if I'm doing this, like, on a company scale, like, what if I try this out, like, more broadly? And that's kinda why, like, my first post was a little bit, like, about front end because Yeah. I was just like, well, let me think, like, okay.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I wrote about front end before. Let me, like, write about front end here. And then that first post, it got, like, 30 plus, you know, likes on LinkedIn. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, this is already, like, more than my front end learning channel, you know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So then I just sort of, like, continued a little bit, but I I was thinking, well, you know, this is good. Like, I can write about front end, but long term, I think, like, the thing that kind of makes me stand out is maybe more of my career journey and it also has, like, more of a broader audience. And, I mean, I've always, like, been into, like, a couple things, like, one, like, the Feynman technique of, you know, like, you teach and you learn it better. And then also just in general, like, I think if I wasn't gonna be an engineer, I've always talked about, like, being a teacher, But, unfortunately, like, teachers are not really paid that way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So so, like, this is kinda like a win win on that boat, you know, where I could get get the benefits there, kinda do what I, you know, wanted to. And I've kinda just continued from there, and I have made, like, small iterative tweaks to how I do things. But, I mean, I'm still generally just doing the same thing as I did, you know, day 1.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That really reminds me, it takes me back to to my elementary school days when the teacher is teaching something and they asked, does anybody have any questions? And you're hoping that one person asks a question because everybody's asking the same question. So being a being that person who shares that that front end experience, you know, even about alt text or whatever, you whatever your learnings are, I kind of equate you to that purse that kid in in elementary school who raised their hand and asked the question that everybody had because I was the kid who was kind of scared that I would look dumb if I asked a question. Were you that type of kid in school?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It's so funny you mentioned that because, yeah, I definitely was. Like, there was even I had a elementary school teacher that was, you know, like, I remember I raised my hand at one point and he kind of made like a joking, like, tantrum a little bit where it was like, oh, Jordan. Okay. What is it now? You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What is the color of the sky? Like, what is it? You know? Like, and he just, like, started asking, like, a bunch of, like, rent like, questions kinda, like, making fun of me a little bit. But, I mean, I didn't take it to heart.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think we're Yeah. We kinda, you know, we had a decent relationship, I suppose. But, yeah, it was to the point where someone even made fun of me for it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Even a teacher. Yeah. Yeah. No. I think that's a I think that's a trait that a lot of us have in common.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's kind of you wanna understand is it's kind of a curiosity almost. Do you do you find that that's actually an important trait to have as an engineer is curiosity? And then how important do you think it is to ask questions that you feel might make you look dumb, but it's important to ask the questions so that you understand what you're trying to learn.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I curiosity, and just, you know, this is part of curiosity, but, like, the willingness to not just look at the surface level and accept it for what it is is super important. One of the things that I, that I teach, like, in my course about, like, senior level coding is that you are constantly thinking about, like, if you use maybe a library, you know, an external tool or something like that, how, like, how does this thing actually work?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, you're not just accepting it for, like, a black box, right? Like, when you use chat gpt, what is it actually doing behind the scenes? And if you, like, think about, like, those types of things, like, enough, then over time you start to build kind of like a like a mental model or like a mental map in your head of like, oh, okay. Yeah. Like this thing is kind of similar to this thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I expect it to work in this certain way. And because I can, like, make that assumption, I might even just be able to, like, try this method and see if it exists. And, like, you know, I don't even need to look at the docs. And, like, I Yeah. I have a feeling, like, that this is gonna work this way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, or, like, if you need to build a similar tool yourself, you kinda already have an idea, you know, of of how you're gonna do it and you can, you know, form the architecture for it or ace your interview because they'll ask you like, hey, design Netflix. And if you've thought enough, like, while you're watching Netflix, like, how is the video streaming, you know, to my to my TV right now? Then Yeah. Maybe you have a decent idea of, like, you know, how you'll be able to do it in an interview. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. And I I think, like, just to add to that, like, curiosity is a big element of that, especially with engineering. And I think the more that you like you said, the more that you dive into, like, the what, why, and how. Of course, there's gonna be questions that sound stupid and elementary and basic around it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? But, they're important questions to get you to dive a bit deeper. Right? And and they're just, like, instinctual things. Like, oh, I just wanna know how this works.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? And sometimes those instinctual things to to me and and to many people are the things that actually end up being these big light bulb moments. At least in I I always relate things back to music because I was, like, sort of the first career path I had. And it was always funny to me to learn that, like, some of these really big number one hits. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, Guns N' Roses, for example, Sweet Child of Mine, that riff was written as a total joke because they had gone to, like they had gone out to Vegas and the casinos, and Slash is just writing this, like, oh, this is what the slot machines sound like. And they just it was a pure joke, and they gave it to the label, and they're like, this is the best song, you know, you guys have. And and they're like, no. We're not releasing this. This is like a joke.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But sometimes the point is that, like, these through these, like, initial, like they're just, like, gut instincts, and you treat them as that. You don't, like, you know, you don't put too much weight and judge them. They're just, like, these ideas that once you put them out, it's like, oh, actually, that's that's the brilliant idea. It's not the stupid idea. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's the brilliant question that led you down the path, not the stupid question. So maybe, yeah, maybe it's it's best that we don't, like, put others' judgment into these things because that can just, like, stop us right there and kill the curiosity.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly. And don't, yeah, don't let it die for\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: sure. Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Do do you find that your community you've built, you know, a a decent a good sized following, about 40,000 times bigger than mine. But do you find that your community, leads you to new tools and new technologies? I'm sure you're out there kind of seeing things that are new on the market or people are sharing, but do you find that one of the benefits of having this community is people sharing back things that you then become curious about? Is that the feedback that you're getting from your community?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Mhmm. Yeah. It's Or\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: or are they just silent listeners?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Definitely not silent listeners, but, I mean, I I think I do get questions sometimes about, like, oh, you know, like, have you have you heard about this tool? Have you tried this tool or something like that? And I think one downside, honestly, you know, because a lot of people reach out to me and they'll they'll say also that they were inspired by my journey to start content creation. It doesn't come without its downsides. It for sure.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, one of the downsides that I've personally experienced is you lose a lot of time to actually especially if you're talking about, like, career growth stuff, more like soft skills, you lose a lot of time to dive into some of those, like, more technical, like, alright. Let me figure out, like, how, you know, Next. Js versus Vite versus Solid. Js, like, all these things, like, work. Like, the most, you know, that I can really do a lot of the time is maybe watch a video, you know, on some some person that's kinda already done that deep dive, and I can't really, like, do it myself.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? So it is something that I wish I could, like I'm trying to sort out and actually, maybe, hopefully, like, if I can figure out how to use AI to save some time on some of the things that I do, then maybe I'll be able to get some time back on\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Has sorry.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I was gonna ask, did has the the high growth engineer, right, your your newsletter, has that led you to meet anyone interesting or inspiring that maybe somebody that you've looked up to or just someone notable in the community?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That I mean, that would I would say would be, like, one of the biggest benefits. I mean, just like a couple off the top of my head, would be, like, Gregor, you know, the engineering leadership guy, Caleb, John Cricket, Wes Kao, the founders, like, at at Plato. It was like a mentorship platform.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Through that, like, I was able to, get, an opportunity to emcee at a conference that they held in San Francisco. I they would have never known about me if I didn't write online or anything like that. And then through that conference, I met, like, a bunch of senior engineering leaders, you know, like VPs of engineering. I met a director of engineering at Netflix, Bruce, a a bunch of other, you know, people as well. Oh, one one 2 more quick shout outs too on people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Ryan Peterman, he's a staff engineer at at Meta. Ravi Raj Achar, he's, like, tech lead mentor. And he him and Irina, Irina Stanescu, they have also base essentially, like, participated in my course as guests, and they just, like, do it out of the goodness of their heart. Like, because we're, you know, connected, we help each other out and all that stuff, that helps like improve the value of my course as well. People love them, you know, when, when they're there, it's like super awesome to be like, hey\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I I have like a past, you know, engineering manager and stat like staff engineer, like at Meta, Google, Uber, like all this stuff. And they're like, you know, they're just like their eye all the students in the course, like, their eyes light up and everything. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That that really speaks to, like we we had spoken to someone else on this podcast, maybe a few episodes ago, but one of the key takeaways is, like, get out there, meet people, like, be a part of the community, like, shake some hands. Right? Because networking is something that's never gonna go away, and it's even actually increasingly more important to meet people in real life. So it sounds like you've definitely benefited from the, you know, the publicity or the or the the exposure that you've gotten online, but actually converted that into, like, actual handshakes, which is really impressive and, like, I think a great way to build your career, especially, like, you know, at at a at a younger age too.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's it's it's amazing. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And one one interesting insight that I've found about networking, especially because, like, you know, I guess within the creator space, normally, it's kind of about, when you help people, you get help in return. Right? Like, the you know, maybe you give someone a shout out and they'll be like, oh, wow. Like, I didn't even know about you before, but, like, you're giving me a shout out. That's super cool.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Let me check out your stuff. Oh, yeah. I'll, like, I'd love to, like, add you as a shout out. And so it's kinda like cool that you've realized that networking really is about, like, giving value first and then, like, getting value back. And, it's not like, hey, you know, tell me about your life story.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm here as, like, a person that you can talk to even though you know nothing about, like, you don't you don't know me at all. And then, like, after you tell me your life story, can I ask you, like, for a job? You know? Yeah. It's nothing it's nothing like about that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Sounds like the typical LinkedIn message. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But the the thing that I found particularly especially as I help other people is, like, it's a little easier for me to kind of do that giving value thing when I have something like, you know, my audience, my LinkedIn post, my newsletter thing, all that stuff.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I I could see it being difficult for someone that is maybe, like, just getting started in the industry or something like that and it's, like, you know, maybe they just, like, my my just view of it from from where I'm looking, it doesn't look like they have that much to give. But I also don't know, You know, if they like, that's the high level principle. If you can find something to give, then you're good. But I don't I don't really know, like, what I can suggest to them. That's part of the issue that I run into when I try to help people with that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you so looking back at your quick journey from junior engineer to senior engineer and building this audience, you know, what do you did you have this where you're at now, did you kind of have this as a goal back 4 or 5 years ago? And then what is your goal for the next 5 years? You mentioned love the love for teaching, and you would do teaching if it was more, lucrative. But, you know, where do you do you wanna move further into leadership and become even more of a mentor for people who are both in your company but also external, or would you rather go down the content creation leader or teacher type, journey?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I I think the content creation, it needs to come from your actual experience. If maybe I wanted to write, you know, indefinitely about how to become a senior engineer because that's where I am right now, right, then I could leave my, you know, leave my job maybe and try this out. But, like, I you know, it would be, it would be, like, inauthentic of me to try to expand outward and say, hey. Here's how you go from senior engineer to staff engineer.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Here's how you go from, you know, senior engineer to manager. I haven't tried those things out. So Yeah. I think one of the unique things that, like, I, bring to the table, like, as a creator is I do have, like, a wide range of experiences in a short amount of time. Like, I, you know, I I worked at Twitter as, like, internship.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I got I got rejected, like, on my like, I got I also I got the return offer, but I also got rejected. So I, like, I know what that both of those, like, feel like. And I also, like, worked at a startup, you know, crypto startup, like, 3, 4 person thing, you know, like, while I was in university. And then, like, I did Gusto, which was, like, medium size. So, like, just in those 3 alone, I basically have, like, all the different sizes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, I have, like, super small, like, Gusto, like, medium size, Twitter, like, you know, bigger. And then now I'm kinda, like, in between, like, 0 and gusto size right now. I qualified.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So I think, like, if I could just keep on, you know, varying the experiences up and and, like, you know, just just add to the repertoire of different things that I've tried, then, it'll probably, you know, make me just be able to relate to pretty much anybody, hopefully, and and keep writing about, you know, things that that hopefully provide value to people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. No. That's that's such a great point is continuing on the the leadership to, you know, higher positions will naturally create that content that other people are looking for. So it's it's almost like you don't have to make that decision, yet you just kind of continue the path that you've been on, and both will come naturally naturally because it sounds like you're a hard worker and you're curious and that that from what who we've who we've talked to before for this podcast and just from our own personal experiences, that's the kind of things that it takes to continue climbing up in the ranks. And so that's such a good point that you don't have to make that decision.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You just keep going where what you're doing, and both will naturally come. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. The inspiration for the content will seem to generate itself. Right? And then it's just, like, translating that experience into content.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I I feel like it would it would be, difficult to come up with ideas, you know, after you're, like, you know, not, you know, in a tech working environment for, you know, the 8 hours a day. At the same time, though, it is it is a lot of work, to do both.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So so I don't know. I'm gonna try to figure out something, but, you know, for TBD.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, there's one position that it sounds like you haven't had, and that is founder of a company. So True. Yeah. Maybe if, you know, you are your founder of your content, but maybe you've been at a startup, but you haven't been the founder.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So maybe that's in your journey eventually. Yeah. So so, you know, what have you learned over the years? What would be some good advice that you give to people who are listening? Pretend that the listeners are are you're their mentor?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? What would you what advice would you give them from your experience?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, so it's tough to give any general advice because every depending on the stage of your career, the advice is gonna be, you know, different. But if I had to give, like, something, you know, maybe to everyone, then I would say, one one really nice takeaway is if you accept that there will always be room to grow, then there you will never be afraid of feedback. And, you know, one way that that kinda sees itself is, a lot of time, you know, we're scared to ask our peers, you know, for feedback or say, hey. How did I do, like, in that presentation? Or, like, how do you how do you feel like, do you feel like I could have done anything better, like, in that meeting that I just ran?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Or, you know, like, how was my how did I how did I do leading this project or something like that? Or, like, just anything like that. A lot of times, we're a little scared to ask. And understandably, you know, we all kinda put our we we put our best foot forward and we we we don't wanna hear that potential that we didn't do as best as we can. But at the same time, the the those two things, like, you can put your best foot forward and you can also always grow.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So if you accept that, then you'll constantly seek out that feedback, and you'll also constantly be growing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow. I might just put that phrase on my wall, you know, because that that's actually some really, really good advice. You know? So that's very good advice that was that was very generic for generic questions.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So well well said. Hopefully, broadly applicable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Awesome. So I guess, you know, we'll we'll wrap it up here. It's been a awesome conversation. But, you know, we've mentioned throughout the conversation some of the things that you're doing, but, obviously, we want people to be, followers of you because you're putting out good things. You're putting out good advice, good content.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So where can people find you? You know? Where what is the courses that you teach? What is your newsletter? Just repeat that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then if people wanna follow you in other places, where where are you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, LinkedIn is the main place where I post every day, you know, updates on kinda everything. So just search Jordan Cutler on LinkedIn.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The newsletter is called high growth engineer. And the course, if you're interested in that, I don't think I will be running that many more cohorts. I think I'm gonna explore different avenues. So try to get in either on this upcoming cohort, although I don't know when the podcast will be out Yep. Or the next one might be my last one.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We'll see. And that one is called mid level to senior engineer, on Maven.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Okay. Awesome. Well, any any last questions from you, Pedro? I feel like I just took over that end.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: No. That's that's amazing. Definitely excited to to continue following your journey as I'm sure most of the, you know, the viewers and the listeners are as well. And, yeah, so subscribe. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I think I think the last word I'll say is I think it's really motivational. There's a lot of young engineers out there and and even older engineers too, so I don't wanna pigeonhole into young engineers who they're curious and they wanna learn. And so I think some of the articles that you've put out about, you know, being a go to in a specific, field or a specific piece of content or what it what may it be.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, it's really, encouraging to see somebody who's younger than me who puts in the effort and has had the success that, they can then share with other people. So it's been a fantastic conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Definitely appreciate it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. It's been great, guys. I really appreciate it.\u003C/p>","If you accept that there will always be room to grow, then there you will never be afraid of feedback. Alright, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks. We have Jordan with us today. Jordan, I'll let you do an introduction on yourself. Just give us a brief background into who you are, where you're from, maybe your favorite, winter activity since we're recording this during the winter. And then after that, we'll kind of dive into the conversation. Alright. Yeah. Sounds good. Yeah. My name is Jordan. I'm a senior software engineer. I'm primarily doing front end right now, but I've been all across the stack. I started at, my career, like, my full time career at Gusto. It's about might have been 4, 5 years ago now, something like that. And I quickly, you know, climbed up the ranks to senior engineer. And, more recently in the past year, I've kind of been writing about that journey, helping, others try to do the same and learn how to level up, go from junior to mid level, then from mid level to senior. And then finally, I've also, you know, just been exploring a bunch of different avenues. One of them right now is a is a course. So I've, you know, started doing, teaching through a cohort course on on Maven, and it's called mid level to senior engineer. I forget if I mentioned that I'm from Philly, but, my favorite, winter activity is probably stumbling through the snow as I'm walking to anywhere I wanna try to get to, because I refuse to wear anything other than my sneakers. So You you get the crunch the crunch under your sneakers. Yeah. But, yes, thanks so much for the introduction. It's so funny to hear somebody say, you know, back at the beginning of my career, and you said 4 or 5 years ago. When I say that phrase, that was 15 years ago. So, what a what a yeah. I think that'd be a great place to start. You know? You you've advanced pretty quickly in your career and as as a software engineer. So if you could, let us know about 4 or 5 years ago at the beginning of your career journey. Let us understand how you made that that quick trajectory from junior engineer, essentially, to senior engineer so quickly. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's it's not all sunshine and rainbows. I mean, in fact, like, when I first started my first job at Gusto, I was kind of feeling a bit of imposter syndrome, because, before that I had done 2 Twitter internships, which you might think, wow, you did 2 Twitter internships and you're feeling imposter syndrome? Well, the thing is is on, you know, on that second Twitter internship, I didn't get a return offer. And, you know, that was kinda like a devastating blow to, oh my gosh. Like, am I gonna be you you you thought you had everything sort of figured out and then it's like, oh, you know, is there something wrong with me? What did I what did I do wrong? Am I gonna get a job at one of these places that I've always dreamt about and all that stuff? And, to get the job at Gusto, I I was very excited, but at the same time, I was scared that the same thing would happen again. You know, maybe they let go of me within 3 months or something like that. So I I I took a lot of the lessons from that experience and what I feel like I did wrong, to not get that return offer going into Gusto. It was almost sort of a blessing in a way. I mean, like, I mean, I I as long as you learn from it. Right? And so one of the things that I remember distinctly sort of being one of my, like, guiding principles is to not try to, like, overshoot too much, and instead to just, like, try to be normal. Like, try to be, like, a normal person in the team, but, like, show how you're kinda contributing. Right? Like, rather than try to be the hero, you know, always and, you know, try to appear like you're smarter than you are or anything like that. Instead, I just felt like, I tried to be the contributing, you know, entry level member of the team, respecting the people, you know, above me, their opinion, and, you know, what what guidance they have, doing the projects that are assigned to me, and just doing them really well rather than trying to, you know, like, change the whole system and, you know, be better, you know, and, like, that that can be done later when maybe, you know, you're at the staff level and, like, you really need to improve things from a foundational perspective. Yeah. You you speak to, something that we don't typically talk about on this podcast, but something that we all deal with every day, which is sort of rejection or our ideas of rejection. Like, you maybe thought you were on this course to do this one thing. And like you said, fortunately, it led you this other path, and and and it turned out to be probably or maybe the better scenario. But we we all face, like, a lot of rejection in our lives, especially John and I, you know, in on the sales side. Of course, it's, like, 90% dealing with rejection, which is just part of the job. But, it'd be interesting to know, you know, through that first of all, with the the Twitter experience, was it was it a a rejection of you, or was that just that your interpretation of it at the time? Or maybe there were external factors that contributed to it that it really wasn't like, oh, I didn't get the callback. It had nothing to do with me. It was maybe organization restructuring or, like, something else. And speak to, like, the psychology of of that. Like, damn, this is a crushing blow to me, but maybe it actually doesn't have anything to do with me. Yeah. Definitely. I mean, there there was some elements at the time where, I wasn't really sure about it a 100 percent because there was other people who didn't get the offer as well. And there were, I think, talks of, like, maybe there were certain limitations on the number of return offers, that they they could give for some reason. But I do know that even in those circumstances, even if maybe you are, you know, it's almost kinda like when you hit the end of the year, and you just, like, start to have that mindset shift of, like, alright, what are my goals gonna be, you know, for the the next year? Like, it's kinda like that in a way where it's just kinda a reality check regardless where it's, you know, what what could I have done better? So that way, regardless of the situation from Twitter's end, I could have done my part the best that I possibly could. And I don't feel like I did like, if I take that time to reflect on that, there were tons of things that I felt like I I could have done better, on that end. Yeah. And I think maybe that's the the takeaway here. It's really about, like, whether it's, you know, wholly our responsibility or not, it's we can at least learn from these things and taking the time to reflect can make us grow. Like, every time we're, you know, I lose an opportunity or something like that, I'd take a sit down and say, like, okay. What part of this was in my control? What part was out of my control? And how can I, you know, improve myself in the future so that this I can minimize this at least from the things that are in my control? So it sounds like it's, you know, reflecting is that valuable time you do after something like that that kinda sets you up for the next stage of the career, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I would say that that's a that's a huge, like, lesson in general as part of the career growth. There's always gonna be tons of things that aren't in your control. I mean, just to give, like, a practical example, I wrote, like, a post yesterday about estimates. A lot of people complain about when you give estimates, people interpret it as deadlines. Well, what are you doing maybe that could potentially give that impression? You know, maybe if you like, someone asked you, hey. How long do you think like this would take? And you say it in a way where it's like, I think if I worked on it, it would take me, like, 3 days. And, like, if you say it like that versus, well, if I were to just give a rough ballpark number right now, then, you know, my guess would be 3 days. But if you wanted me to give you a more accurate number, then let you know, give me some time to to look into it. Like, if you say it like that, well, then it's a much different impression that the person receives. And so even if you could blame them for, you know, can't you know, making it a deadline when it really wasn't, well, what what could you do, like, on your part to make sure that that's as clear as possible? Yeah. Like, basically, don't pull an Elon and tell everyone full self driving is coming in a year when it's 2016. Uh-huh. Exactly. Well, at least at least the Cybertruck finally came out. You know, it might have taken 4 years for that, but it's here. You you mentioned your, you you mentioned writing a post, and I I think that's a good segue into who you are publicly. You know, you are, I guess, a engineer influencer. I don't I don't even know what those terms are anymore. But, I I've read a lot of your articles, and I think there's a lot of lessons that you you share, you know, about being a go to player and and taking rejection and all of those types of posts. Why did you originally start posting to social media and LinkedIn, and then you now have a, a newsletter that goes out? So I'd love to understand how I I typically perceive engineers as a little bit kind of quieter and typically don't post those types of things. But was it some of the lessons that you learned early on that made you want to be more social and share those experiences, or was there different reason that you started posting and and started the newsletter? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a great question. I mean, it's it's hard to pinpoint, like, one exact thing, but I do remember, like, where it started. And, you know, the it started from, one single post, and it had nothing to do with, like, what I write about now, actually. It was, you know, it was on accessibility, like, alt text. And, I think, like, at the time, I was thinking that previously at at my, you know, at Gusto, I had started a channel that was called, Jordan's Front End Learnings, and it was essentially like, me just taking notes, but, like, kinda sharing it in a way that could be consumed, like, more broadly rather than just, like, a brain dump, you know, of things. And it would almost be, like, little mini lessons. And I would, like, write, you know, in there as I learn stuff because I wanted to learn more about front end. And, like, over time, you know, people started to join that, And, it kinda opened my eyes a little bit of, like, oh, okay. Like, people like, I'm not even really trying. And people seem to enjoy some of these, like, this sort of, like, learning community, you know, like, and eventually it got up to, like, 50 people and it started, you know, from 0 where I'm just like not even advertising it, like just kind of spread through word-of-mouth a little bit. And it made me think, well, like, if I'm doing this, like, on a company scale, like, what if I try this out, like, more broadly? And that's kinda why, like, my first post was a little bit, like, about front end because Yeah. I was just like, well, let me think, like, okay. I wrote about front end before. Let me, like, write about front end here. And then that first post, it got, like, 30 plus, you know, likes on LinkedIn. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, this is already, like, more than my front end learning channel, you know. So then I just sort of, like, continued a little bit, but I I was thinking, well, you know, this is good. Like, I can write about front end, but long term, I think, like, the thing that kind of makes me stand out is maybe more of my career journey and it also has, like, more of a broader audience. And, I mean, I've always, like, been into, like, a couple things, like, one, like, the Feynman technique of, you know, like, you teach and you learn it better. And then also just in general, like, I think if I wasn't gonna be an engineer, I've always talked about, like, being a teacher, But, unfortunately, like, teachers are not really paid that way. Yeah. Yeah. So so, like, this is kinda like a win win on that boat, you know, where I could get get the benefits there, kinda do what I, you know, wanted to. And I've kinda just continued from there, and I have made, like, small iterative tweaks to how I do things. But, I mean, I'm still generally just doing the same thing as I did, you know, day 1. Yeah. That really reminds me, it takes me back to to my elementary school days when the teacher is teaching something and they asked, does anybody have any questions? And you're hoping that one person asks a question because everybody's asking the same question. So being a being that person who shares that that front end experience, you know, even about alt text or whatever, you whatever your learnings are, I kind of equate you to that purse that kid in in elementary school who raised their hand and asked the question that everybody had because I was the kid who was kind of scared that I would look dumb if I asked a question. Were you that type of kid in school? It's so funny you mentioned that because, yeah, I definitely was. Like, there was even I had a elementary school teacher that was, you know, like, I remember I raised my hand at one point and he kind of made like a joking, like, tantrum a little bit where it was like, oh, Jordan. Okay. What is it now? You know? What is the color of the sky? Like, what is it? You know? Like, and he just, like, started asking, like, a bunch of, like, rent like, questions kinda, like, making fun of me a little bit. But, I mean, I didn't take it to heart. I think we're Yeah. We kinda, you know, we had a decent relationship, I suppose. But, yeah, it was to the point where someone even made fun of me for it. Even a teacher. Yeah. Yeah. No. I think that's a I think that's a trait that a lot of us have in common. It's kind of you wanna understand is it's kind of a curiosity almost. Do you do you find that that's actually an important trait to have as an engineer is curiosity? And then how important do you think it is to ask questions that you feel might make you look dumb, but it's important to ask the questions so that you understand what you're trying to learn. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I curiosity, and just, you know, this is part of curiosity, but, like, the willingness to not just look at the surface level and accept it for what it is is super important. One of the things that I, that I teach, like, in my course about, like, senior level coding is that you are constantly thinking about, like, if you use maybe a library, you know, an external tool or something like that, how, like, how does this thing actually work? Like, you're not just accepting it for, like, a black box, right? Like, when you use chat gpt, what is it actually doing behind the scenes? And if you, like, think about, like, those types of things, like, enough, then over time you start to build kind of like a like a mental model or like a mental map in your head of like, oh, okay. Yeah. Like this thing is kind of similar to this thing. I expect it to work in this certain way. And because I can, like, make that assumption, I might even just be able to, like, try this method and see if it exists. And, like, you know, I don't even need to look at the docs. And, like, I Yeah. I have a feeling, like, that this is gonna work this way. And, or, like, if you need to build a similar tool yourself, you kinda already have an idea, you know, of of how you're gonna do it and you can, you know, form the architecture for it or ace your interview because they'll ask you like, hey, design Netflix. And if you've thought enough, like, while you're watching Netflix, like, how is the video streaming, you know, to my to my TV right now? Then Yeah. Maybe you have a decent idea of, like, you know, how you'll be able to do it in an interview. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I I think, like, just to add to that, like, curiosity is a big element of that, especially with engineering. And I think the more that you like you said, the more that you dive into, like, the what, why, and how. Of course, there's gonna be questions that sound stupid and elementary and basic around it. Right? But, they're important questions to get you to dive a bit deeper. Right? And and they're just, like, instinctual things. Like, oh, I just wanna know how this works. Right? And sometimes those instinctual things to to me and and to many people are the things that actually end up being these big light bulb moments. At least in I I always relate things back to music because I was, like, sort of the first career path I had. And it was always funny to me to learn that, like, some of these really big number one hits. Right? Like, Guns N' Roses, for example, Sweet Child of Mine, that riff was written as a total joke because they had gone to, like they had gone out to Vegas and the casinos, and Slash is just writing this, like, oh, this is what the slot machines sound like. And they just it was a pure joke, and they gave it to the label, and they're like, this is the best song, you know, you guys have. And and they're like, no. We're not releasing this. This is like a joke. But sometimes the point is that, like, these through these, like, initial, like they're just, like, gut instincts, and you treat them as that. You don't, like, you know, you don't put too much weight and judge them. They're just, like, these ideas that once you put them out, it's like, oh, actually, that's that's the brilliant idea. It's not the stupid idea. Right? That's the brilliant question that led you down the path, not the stupid question. So maybe, yeah, maybe it's it's best that we don't, like, put others' judgment into these things because that can just, like, stop us right there and kill the curiosity. Yeah. Exactly. And don't, yeah, don't let it die for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Do do you find that your community you've built, you know, a a decent a good sized following, about 40,000 times bigger than mine. But do you find that your community, leads you to new tools and new technologies? I'm sure you're out there kind of seeing things that are new on the market or people are sharing, but do you find that one of the benefits of having this community is people sharing back things that you then become curious about? Is that the feedback that you're getting from your community? Mhmm. Yeah. It's Or or are they just silent listeners? Definitely not silent listeners, but, I mean, I I think I do get questions sometimes about, like, oh, you know, like, have you have you heard about this tool? Have you tried this tool or something like that? And I think one downside, honestly, you know, because a lot of people reach out to me and they'll they'll say also that they were inspired by my journey to start content creation. It doesn't come without its downsides. It for sure. Like, one of the downsides that I've personally experienced is you lose a lot of time to actually especially if you're talking about, like, career growth stuff, more like soft skills, you lose a lot of time to dive into some of those, like, more technical, like, alright. Let me figure out, like, how, you know, Next. Js versus Vite versus Solid. Js, like, all these things, like, work. Like, the most, you know, that I can really do a lot of the time is maybe watch a video, you know, on some some person that's kinda already done that deep dive, and I can't really, like, do it myself. You know? So it is something that I wish I could, like I'm trying to sort out and actually, maybe, hopefully, like, if I can figure out how to use AI to save some time on some of the things that I do, then maybe I'll be able to get some time back on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Has sorry. I was gonna ask, did has the the high growth engineer, right, your your newsletter, has that led you to meet anyone interesting or inspiring that maybe somebody that you've looked up to or just someone notable in the community? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That I mean, that would I would say would be, like, one of the biggest benefits. I mean, just like a couple off the top of my head, would be, like, Gregor, you know, the engineering leadership guy, Caleb, John Cricket, Wes Kao, the founders, like, at at Plato. It was like a mentorship platform. Through that, like, I was able to, get, an opportunity to emcee at a conference that they held in San Francisco. I they would have never known about me if I didn't write online or anything like that. And then through that conference, I met, like, a bunch of senior engineering leaders, you know, like VPs of engineering. I met a director of engineering at Netflix, Bruce, a a bunch of other, you know, people as well. Oh, one one 2 more quick shout outs too on people. Ryan Peterman, he's a staff engineer at at Meta. Ravi Raj Achar, he's, like, tech lead mentor. And he him and Irina, Irina Stanescu, they have also base essentially, like, participated in my course as guests, and they just, like, do it out of the goodness of their heart. Like, because we're, you know, connected, we help each other out and all that stuff, that helps like improve the value of my course as well. People love them, you know, when, when they're there, it's like super awesome to be like, hey Yeah. I I have like a past, you know, engineering manager and stat like staff engineer, like at Meta, Google, Uber, like all this stuff. And they're like, you know, they're just like their eye all the students in the course, like, their eyes light up and everything. You know? Yeah. That that really speaks to, like we we had spoken to someone else on this podcast, maybe a few episodes ago, but one of the key takeaways is, like, get out there, meet people, like, be a part of the community, like, shake some hands. Right? Because networking is something that's never gonna go away, and it's even actually increasingly more important to meet people in real life. So it sounds like you've definitely benefited from the, you know, the publicity or the or the the exposure that you've gotten online, but actually converted that into, like, actual handshakes, which is really impressive and, like, I think a great way to build your career, especially, like, you know, at at a at a younger age too. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's it's it's amazing. Yeah. And one one interesting insight that I've found about networking, especially because, like, you know, I guess within the creator space, normally, it's kind of about, when you help people, you get help in return. Right? Like, the you know, maybe you give someone a shout out and they'll be like, oh, wow. Like, I didn't even know about you before, but, like, you're giving me a shout out. That's super cool. Let me check out your stuff. Oh, yeah. I'll, like, I'd love to, like, add you as a shout out. And so it's kinda like cool that you've realized that networking really is about, like, giving value first and then, like, getting value back. And, it's not like, hey, you know, tell me about your life story. I'm here as, like, a person that you can talk to even though you know nothing about, like, you don't you don't know me at all. And then, like, after you tell me your life story, can I ask you, like, for a job? You know? Yeah. It's nothing it's nothing like about that. Sounds like the typical LinkedIn message. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But the the thing that I found particularly especially as I help other people is, like, it's a little easier for me to kind of do that giving value thing when I have something like, you know, my audience, my LinkedIn post, my newsletter thing, all that stuff. But I I could see it being difficult for someone that is maybe, like, just getting started in the industry or something like that and it's, like, you know, maybe they just, like, my my just view of it from from where I'm looking, it doesn't look like they have that much to give. But I also don't know, You know, if they like, that's the high level principle. If you can find something to give, then you're good. But I don't I don't really know, like, what I can suggest to them. That's part of the issue that I run into when I try to help people with that. Yeah. Do you so looking back at your quick journey from junior engineer to senior engineer and building this audience, you know, what do you did you have this where you're at now, did you kind of have this as a goal back 4 or 5 years ago? And then what is your goal for the next 5 years? You mentioned love the love for teaching, and you would do teaching if it was more, lucrative. But, you know, where do you do you wanna move further into leadership and become even more of a mentor for people who are both in your company but also external, or would you rather go down the content creation leader or teacher type, journey? Yeah. I I think the content creation, it needs to come from your actual experience. If maybe I wanted to write, you know, indefinitely about how to become a senior engineer because that's where I am right now, right, then I could leave my, you know, leave my job maybe and try this out. But, like, I you know, it would be, it would be, like, inauthentic of me to try to expand outward and say, hey. Here's how you go from senior engineer to staff engineer. Here's how you go from, you know, senior engineer to manager. I haven't tried those things out. So Yeah. I think one of the unique things that, like, I, bring to the table, like, as a creator is I do have, like, a wide range of experiences in a short amount of time. Like, I, you know, I I worked at Twitter as, like, internship. I got I got rejected, like, on my like, I got I also I got the return offer, but I also got rejected. So I, like, I know what that both of those, like, feel like. And I also, like, worked at a startup, you know, crypto startup, like, 3, 4 person thing, you know, like, while I was in university. And then, like, I did Gusto, which was, like, medium size. So, like, just in those 3 alone, I basically have, like, all the different sizes. Like, I have, like, super small, like, Gusto, like, medium size, Twitter, like, you know, bigger. And then now I'm kinda, like, in between, like, 0 and gusto size right now. I qualified. Yeah. So I think, like, if I could just keep on, you know, varying the experiences up and and, like, you know, just just add to the repertoire of different things that I've tried, then, it'll probably, you know, make me just be able to relate to pretty much anybody, hopefully, and and keep writing about, you know, things that that hopefully provide value to people. Yeah. No. That's that's such a great point is continuing on the the leadership to, you know, higher positions will naturally create that content that other people are looking for. So it's it's almost like you don't have to make that decision, yet you just kind of continue the path that you've been on, and both will come naturally naturally because it sounds like you're a hard worker and you're curious and that that from what who we've who we've talked to before for this podcast and just from our own personal experiences, that's the kind of things that it takes to continue climbing up in the ranks. And so that's such a good point that you don't have to make that decision. You just keep going where what you're doing, and both will naturally come. So Yeah. The inspiration for the content will seem to generate itself. Right? And then it's just, like, translating that experience into content. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I I feel like it would it would be, difficult to come up with ideas, you know, after you're, like, you know, not, you know, in a tech working environment for, you know, the 8 hours a day. At the same time, though, it is it is a lot of work, to do both. So so I don't know. I'm gonna try to figure out something, but, you know, for TBD. Yeah. Well, there's one position that it sounds like you haven't had, and that is founder of a company. So True. Yeah. Maybe if, you know, you are your founder of your content, but maybe you've been at a startup, but you haven't been the founder. So maybe that's in your journey eventually. Yeah. So so, you know, what have you learned over the years? What would be some good advice that you give to people who are listening? Pretend that the listeners are are you're their mentor? You know? What would you what advice would you give them from your experience? Well, so it's tough to give any general advice because every depending on the stage of your career, the advice is gonna be, you know, different. But if I had to give, like, something, you know, maybe to everyone, then I would say, one one really nice takeaway is if you accept that there will always be room to grow, then there you will never be afraid of feedback. And, you know, one way that that kinda sees itself is, a lot of time, you know, we're scared to ask our peers, you know, for feedback or say, hey. How did I do, like, in that presentation? Or, like, how do you how do you feel like, do you feel like I could have done anything better, like, in that meeting that I just ran? Or, you know, like, how was my how did I how did I do leading this project or something like that? Or, like, just anything like that. A lot of times, we're a little scared to ask. And understandably, you know, we all kinda put our we we put our best foot forward and we we we don't wanna hear that potential that we didn't do as best as we can. But at the same time, the the those two things, like, you can put your best foot forward and you can also always grow. So if you accept that, then you'll constantly seek out that feedback, and you'll also constantly be growing. Yeah. Wow. I might just put that phrase on my wall, you know, because that that's actually some really, really good advice. You know? So that's very good advice that was that was very generic for generic questions. So well well said. Hopefully, broadly applicable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So I guess, you know, we'll we'll wrap it up here. It's been a awesome conversation. But, you know, we've mentioned throughout the conversation some of the things that you're doing, but, obviously, we want people to be, followers of you because you're putting out good things. You're putting out good advice, good content. So where can people find you? You know? Where what is the courses that you teach? What is your newsletter? Just repeat that. And then if people wanna follow you in other places, where where are you? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, LinkedIn is the main place where I post every day, you know, updates on kinda everything. So just search Jordan Cutler on LinkedIn. The newsletter is called high growth engineer. And the course, if you're interested in that, I don't think I will be running that many more cohorts. I think I'm gonna explore different avenues. So try to get in either on this upcoming cohort, although I don't know when the podcast will be out Yep. Or the next one might be my last one. We'll see. And that one is called mid level to senior engineer, on Maven. Okay. Awesome. Well, any any last questions from you, Pedro? I feel like I just took over that end. No. That's that's amazing. Definitely excited to to continue following your journey as I'm sure most of the, you know, the viewers and the listeners are as well. And, yeah, so subscribe. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I think I think the last word I'll say is I think it's really motivational. There's a lot of young engineers out there and and even older engineers too, so I don't wanna pigeonhole into young engineers who they're curious and they wanna learn. And so I think some of the articles that you've put out about, you know, being a go to in a specific, field or a specific piece of content or what it what may it be. But, it's really, encouraging to see somebody who's younger than me who puts in the effort and has had the success that, they can then share with other people. So it's been a fantastic conversation. Yeah. Definitely appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. It's been great, guys. I really appreciate it.","4464b245-d6a0-4ec6-93d1-1a5c4c22a6e5",[323,324,325],"fe544209-43f4-46ad-8e81-571b70fbe1ca","9962d71f-c125-4f09-9cd5-687cfeb0de23","9d080d12-4247-4622-adaf-ba6f1b796ac6",[],{"id":134,"number":135,"show":122,"year":136,"episodes":328},[138,139,140,141,142],{"id":141,"slug":330,"vimeo_id":331,"description":332,"tile":333,"length":316,"resources":8,"people":8,"episode_number":239,"published":334,"title":335,"video_transcript_html":336,"video_transcript_text":337,"content":8,"seo":338,"status":130,"episode_people":339,"recommendations":343,"season":344},"scott-adrian","948811579","In this episode of Trace Talks, Scott Adrian shares his journey from professional piercer and musician to Senior WordPress Engineer. Scott discusses his early experiences with web development, starting with Myspace layouts for his band, and his first tech job at 1 Stop Internet. He highlights his transition to WordPress, leading teams, and mentoring junior developers. Scott also talks about balancing his career with personal projects, including publishing a sci-fi fantasy novel and developing a WordPress-based RPG game. Tune in for insights on career growth, leadership, and leveraging AI in development.","b6eb2819-3e45-4d1c-92fc-de0c6151a78b","2024-06-27","Scott Adrian, Sr. Wordpress Developer","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Always thought, you know, I'm gonna I'll I'll just be a rock star, you know, no biggie. You know, I'll just go through the school thing and then be be famous for that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks. Today, we have Scott Adrian. I'm Pedro. We also have John here as well, who you may recognize from past episodes because we run this podcast.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Don't we, John?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yep.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Any anyway, yeah. Scott, you know, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background. I know you are a WordPress engineer, have been for some time transitioned from different, you know, backgrounds. Like, many of the folks we talked to maybe started off in a different industry, and ended up in, you know, in tech and in in web tech. So Mhmm.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'd love to hear about your career, what got you to this point, and, you know, what brought you from professional piercer to musician to, you know, maybe a career in technology?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Right. Money. Yeah. That's Yeah. That's what.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: He's a good driver.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Wait. There's money in tech?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly. That was the only one that made it. Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because, you know, when I, yeah, when I started out, I was like, oh, okay. So I'm gonna be famous. That wasn't a question. It's like, what am I gonna be famous for? My dad was a long time rock star and lead guitarist and stuff in bands.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, I always thought, you know, I'm gonna, I'll, I'll just be a rock star, You know, no biggie. You know, I'll just go through the school thing and and then be be famous for that. And then yeah. Music was hard and I got into piercing, because I wanna make money at a young age. And, you know, back in 2,000, 2,000 ish, you know, 2,002, 3, Piercings were hot.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? Everybody everybody was trying to it was getting more popular tattoos, piercings, and and, it really helped that everybody underage had somebody else that was underage that could pierce them. So, yeah, I I, that's how I that was my first business. And then when I turned 18, I actually started working in shops because I'm like, okay, well, doing so well, you know, out, you know, an underground, go to a shop and there'll be gangbusters. But yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. You you learn early on when you start working in shops. I was in Hollywood for a couple years. It's called the Walk of Fame tattoo. And on top of being horrifying and tear terribly scary, you know, working long nights in downtown Hollywood, There's no money in piercing specifically.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I can't talk about tattooing. They seem to be doing well, and I I have long time friends that are still, you know, very successful tattoo artists. But, yeah, Pierce Piercing's such a novelty. And people that come to shops, you know, walk ins are are like, here, I wanna nose. I want my ear.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, you know, you're getting $20 on a Saturday.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: And, yeah. Didn't didn't work out for me. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: So what so then what prompted that transition into, like you know, obviously, there was there's a bit more money to be made, you said, in in the web stuff, but what was sort of that initial catalyst to get you thinking about programming?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. So I I I'm\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: also really curious because I also you know, I I I wanted to be a professional golfer. I was like, oh, that's that's me. You need to be a professional golfer. And then there you know, I'd\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You need to be good at golf for that, John.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Well, I I forgot about that part. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. But\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: but when I made that transition when I made that transition into web design or websites, I just had a friend who said, hey. I'll pay you $50 to build a website. So I'm just curious because that was what it was for me that kind of got me into web design and technology. So I'm kinda curious to hear your story about how you've gotten to tech, but also what was your first paying job for that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Because, you know, I've been doing web development for, you know, closer to 20 years, on my own. Because originally, when I was in bands, we needed a website, we needed a Myspace, custom Myspace layout.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so that's what that was my first instances of HTML, CSS. Just I\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: think I think for all 3 of us, that was probably probably a similar story. Exactly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So I knew I could do it. And, and, you know, it it was, you know, it's a skill I was gaining just for fun and just for my own stuff. Same with graphic design. I was making all the albums and shirt designs and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, the the catalyst, was really I got a job for 1 stop Internet.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This was in 2,000, Yeah. Because I left I left in 2006 or 7. Yeah. So I was there for a while. I, I started working in the warehouse at 1 Stop Internet and they're, they're an outsourced e commerce company, basically large companies would be like, Hey, we need you to be our e commerce.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So they, they build the website. They house, they had warehouses, they'd store all the product and they'd handle all the distribution themselves and all their shipping and all that stuff. So website and fulfillment all in one. So we had giant names. I mean, we had Von Dutch, giant name.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We had we had, you know, Betsy Johnson, you know, Vestal Watches, Lululemon, True Religion, giant giant, brands, that that were housing other stuff, and we were doing the websites. And I was picking items for the warehouse at first. They promised me a job in the photo studio. So after after a little while and that finally happened, I started doing high volume photo retouching. And that's when I got on a computer, and I finally was getting paid to do work on a computer.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It was photo, Photoshop and 1,000 images a day, you know, but, I ended up, you know, moving up and kind of running the post production. I was post production coordinator for years. And then, and I started doing little web work for them because clients would need like a slideshow to see the images that they were, that we were taking for them and they wanted to view them. So I'd make these little flash websites and and these little Dreamweaver based websites, with sliders and all that kind of stuff. And, it it kinda sucked because one stop Internet built websites.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Mhmm. Like, for these clients, giant giant ecommerce websites. And I never had a chance to work for that department ever, which is crazy. I I tried. I I tried to apply it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's just like, hey, any openings and, you know, and they just had these very talented programmers working there, you know? So, so I left I left for, an e commerce company who took a chance on me to like run their website. And, it was on asp.net storefront, asp.net storefront, which was not a great first, website to be running and work on. But luckily, they needed a blog, and, we went for WordPress. And that's where I first kinda got introduced into WordPress.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, so at that point, Piercing was side job, and, you know, I only did on the weekends or whenever the shop needed me. And, all all my income was coming from, you know, website work. And, yeah. And that's when I first started working in WordPress just with custom themes and plugins like everybody else does. And, and, eventually we needed some extra stuff and I would jump into the code and, Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>From there, I I, you know, to to gain more knowledge, I was doing a lot of side jobs, a lot of freelance work. I had a lot of time at this gig.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I played a lot of video games and watched a lot of series of animes, so much, that, yeah, I ended up being able to do a bunch of side work while I was working there. And, it was yeah. Just Craigslist. That was the Alpha main got out 50% of my income was Craigslist jobs, building websites.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: What was the initial driver to WordPress? Was it the ease of use? I honestly never got into WordPress myself. I was a Dreamweaver designer, which\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. It was. The ease of use. It was really easy to pick up. And at that time, I was scrappy, so I was just pulling in third party themes and plugins, hard coding CSS to just make them look how they wanted.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, I'd get something very close, 3rd party, and I just manipulate it. And, yeah, it was easy money, really. That that was how it got to that point. And Yeah. Do you do\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: you think, like, specializing on WordPress allowed you to do that? Because typically in, like, the industry, we see there's, you know, sort of a debate on having a broad set of you know, being a full stack engineering, having a broad set of of tools at your disposal to really focusing in on a niche and being an expert in maybe WordPress or some specific Right. Language, for example. How has that kind of shaped your career trajectory thinking, you know, that you started in WordPress and and continue to focus on on that as a niche?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. You know, it wasn't a conscious decision. I think like everybody else, I got pigeonholed. My resume started one way and it just kept growing that way. And then at a certain point, it was, you know, I was the WordPress guy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, you know, I started working for Beachbody's and, and working in their in their coaching department. We're developing a whole coaching platform in WordPress. And I was working some with some really, Austin Passi, big WordPress name. He ran the LA WordCamp a few years, and, they brought him in. And I I absorbed as much as I could because at that point, I was, like, the least experienced.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I I I could do whatever you wanted, but I would do it wrong because I was just using old old people's code and, you know, just piecemealing things together. But he he showed me like, oh, I can just build a theme. Oh, I can build a plugin, you know, to make this happen. And, and there was other guys on the team too that were really advanced. And, yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that's what I did. I faked it till I made it, and, and then I And\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: you made it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: And I made it. Yeah. So I had that on my resume, moved on to more jobs, you know, investors.com, like, one of at the time, one of the highest trafficked WordPress sites in the world. I jumped on as a lead, and I was leading, you know, 4 or 5 devs, all WordPress based. And, we were just developing custom themes and plugins for them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, you know, I started working with they I forget the scenario, but they brought XWP in, which is a big name in the WordPress world as well. They they're the ones that did, like, a collaboration with Google to get, like, the Google AMP plugin and, and, other things. And, Thierry and some of the other guys, I would literally have them in my, in my office with me. And these guys were like core contributors to the max, to WordPress. And, again, I just absorbed so much.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm talking, I learned unit testing there. I learned sanitization and escaping. All the you know, I already know how to program, but I learned coding standards from from that company, while pretending I already knew them, you know, which was a big theme.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: And, Yeah. And and so, that's that got me to the expert level, really.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Mhmm.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: And I knew at that point, you know, any job I take going forward, I'm asking double and I'm, you know, and Yeah. And they're gonna, you know, they're gonna pay it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. What was that transition like into leadership leading a team of 4 or 5 devs when, you know, 10, 15 years prior, you're like, I'm a be a professional tattoo artist, You know? And now you're leading people as sort of, like, a boss almost. What was that like, that first leadership role?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I don't I guess it was weird. You know, when you're in a place of authority, it's all about appearance. As long as they're they think you're the authority and they think that you know what you're talking about and you and you're not completely horrible at your job and and you're not completely talking out of your ass. I was very good at, figuring things out on the fly while I was talking.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So still am.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So, yeah, I guess it wasn't that bad. You know, they weren't I mentored a couple people who are really junior in the WordPress world. So, you know, you learn the most when you're teaching, and that really helped, helped me develop them into the dev that I needed them to be for for what I was doing and what I needed them to do. So, yeah, it wasn't that bad. I was I wasn't too nervous about leading the team, but it was surreal.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? Because I never really thought about the trajectory. I just thought I'm gonna make money being the doer, the code monkey. You know what I mean? And, but, yeah, I mean, I got old.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. You know? I got experience.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Well well, as you've gotten older, you've maintained these side projects. You just released a book 6 months ago, so congrats on the book. And then I saw that you also you also released, like, an RPG game on the side or something. So as you've Sorry.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>As you progress Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: You're you're correct. Yeah. So, last in 2023, I first published my my first sci fi fantasy cover, you know, novel, called Orbum. And, another another great learning experience, knew nothing about the book industry, made a lot of assumptions, and, I just recently rereleased it because I did it wrong.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Amazing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: In January 28th, I rereleased all of them properly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Got\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: it. And, and actually book 2 is on preorder now, Myroupelia, which should be out July 1st. It's gonna be a 4 book series. Never thought I was gonna be an author. I read a lot of sci fi books at one point.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I was going through, like, 20 or so series. And I basically I have a really bad habit of if I'm spending a lot of time doing something that, that I'm not making money on, I feel, you know, that I'm not being productive. It's that really bad ambition kinda bug.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's it's definitely a really good timing this year. I think I think 2024 is a great year for sci fi having, you know, just seen Dune. And and all the stuff that's coming later this year. I think it's it's definitely a great year to be, you know, releasing that that type of material.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: wonder if that came from, you know, all the the free time that you mentioned that you had that you were watching all these anime and playing video games. Like, maybe that sort of inspired the the book as well.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, it the story structure's definitely inspired by tons of the anime I I was watching. You know, play I played a lot of video games when I was younger. I do not have time to do that, you know, in the last 10 years. But, yeah, the, I, I, I think I had a, I had a big, you know, childhood of media.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, we always had a TV. We always had movies. We always had video games. And, so, yeah, everything's ingrained in my brain, and it's all just straight imagination. I don't, you know, the research I do for the books is are for the technical scientific terms because it's technically a hard sci fi book, because I do a lot of explaining of things that don't exist.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, but, yeah, more more more or less, I don't plot the entire thing out. I kinda know where it's gonna go in my head to the very end. But, yeah, the main the main, driving force is I wanna know what happened next. You know? I wanna know what they're gonna say and to make people laugh because I I my natural timbre is snark.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Same. Same. Yeah. Do you think\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: that that draws, like, the sort of the the authorship and the tech world sort of draw a parallel in that sense of, you know, you're sort of creating something out of nothing, especially when designing, you know, WordPress sort of extensions or plugins or coding things from, from scratch?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, if, if you ever get a chance to read it, and being in the industry you're in and knowing where I came from, you're going to get a lot, a lot of the same, you're going to get a lot of the corporate world in there. A lot of the same terms, programming terms, and stuff like that. Things that maybe some people wouldn't, offhand know, like smoke testing and regression testing, you know, talking about his systems and, just little things like that, which, spill into the, the novel. Cause you know, these are scientists or they were all working for a corporation and then they all had to run away, you know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, it's easy to to to make, correlations there, but, yeah, I mean, it's all creative. I feel like as I get more into leadership, I get less creative outlets. So this is good for me, you know, rather than, you know, leading a team or managing a team. Like, I, you know, I used to be making things all the time, that kind of stuff. And, you know, and when you get to a certain level, it's a lot about maintenance and it's a lot about keeping things afloat, especially in the industry now where budgets are getting cut left and right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Nobody wants to build a brand new this, you know, except for AI. Everybody wants a brand new AI tool. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. What's your, what's your take on that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: What are we using AI for? Love AI. Right. I'm not against AI. You know, I've been working with OpenAI's API and using it for various things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I use chat gpt all the damn time. I'm not a prompt engineer, but, man, I hate writing, you know, array building loops sometimes. So I'm just like, write me a function that takes this and moves the, you know, the key to the end and then move this key to the beginning and then merges them all the oh, dude. I just created a an object merging function. I I just don't have the patience to merge a bunch of objects together as long as they have true as their key value or whatever.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So With your Love that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Do you do you explore other new tech? Because, obviously, AI is very popular, but any other new tech or how much time do you even have to explore new tech or interest?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I don't, kind of both. I don't have interest, and I don't have time. Yeah. I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You think I I always say the the career is is for the money. Right? And then use the money to do things that make you happy. So I don't put I am very interested in the tech world. I keep up with, the general tech industry and general things.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, I work with people that are like, Oh, look at this new API. Oh, look at this new endpoint. Look at this new, tool, this new whatever framework. And they keep me in the know. Luckily, You know, I'm not sitting there building a sandbox of, of the newest, you know, React threads or whatever.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I'm just and we're like, look. It's like, oh, okay. Yes. I love that. What are we using it for?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's I really have to learn by doing something that is being productive and and for a reason. And that's how I've learned my entire career. I think it's, you know, I think it's very valuable too when I find other programmers. You know, if I'm if I wanna hire somebody, that they have the skill set to just pick something up and learn it when they're doing it, and then applying it accordingly. And that goes to the whole philosophy of, you know, college degree versus the same amount of time as experience in work.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: You know, I don't I didn't go to college for doing any of this. I didn't I I did a weird trade school just to have a certificate on my LinkedIn, And, and it's never slowed me down or stopped me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So I don't care about that. If I'm gonna look at somebody's resume, you know, it it's I'd way rather you have 4 years working for, butt effing startup, whatever\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Company, you know, where they were making you wear multiple hats and you, you know, and you still have a positive referral. So Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You know? And outlook on life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: And you're still happy and you wanna keep going. Yeah. Exactly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Right. Exactly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Dude. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That's probably the opposite of Pedro. I I probably get 4 or 5 text messages or tweets a day from Pedro telling me to check out new tech. And, like, I can't pay I can't pay attention to all of this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I'm the, yeah, I'm the tools fanatic. It's just like, what can make me more efficient so that I can go sit on a beach somewhere?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I yeah. I I have a buddy, Scott Weaver. Same same exact way. I hate looking at his setup. Somebody give it give me that give me that that bash.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What do you what do you he builds his own bashes for his own computer just to make setting it up quick. I'm like, give me that. He's given me it. He's given it before. Like, when you do a computer transfer from 1 to 2, I was like, oh, it's such a drag.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>He built an entire bash function that takes all the apps he likes and takes all the setups he does and it installs it all and just runs it. Wow. And I'm just like, you know, he has a repo for it, and I just take it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Incredible.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. But that's I know I know my my work style. I know my personality traits. I know my time, my multitasking and time structures, and, you know, it's just not me. I can appreciate people that do live that way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you are you still able to find any time to to I think you mentioned you don't really watch too much anime or play too many games. You know? What kind of a personal life do you have? I I think I I think I hear kids, so there's also potentially some kids who take up time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Apologize for that if it's loud. Let me know because I got the headphones in. But, yeah, wife and 2 kids, 4 dogs. I have plenty of other things I need to do during the day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. Plenty of time to spend with there and happiness that they bring. And, you know, my youngest, has autism and, she's the one that's usually around when she's not in in school. Yeah. And, so, you know,\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I'm I'm kind of the the main tear\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: caretaker for her as well. I I handle all her therapy sessions and all the paperwork and all that kind of stuff. So that's that's also an extra time spent that I need to focus on as well. You know, I have documenting her progress and stuff too. Just teaching her to brush her teeth right now.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>She's 8. I'm teaching her to brush her teeth right now, and I have to, like, document it, you know, how how her progress going and stuff like that. So, you know, I do watch anime, though, still. I just caught up with 1 piece because I did watch all the way to the, Wano saga and then I ran out of episodes and this was 2014 or something, 2015. Holy crap.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Getting back to it. So I finished the Wano, recently, because because I'll tell you why too. It's because my other kid, my my oldest, she's 10. She plays Roblox and I kept seeing these freaking luffy 5th gear avatars. And I'm like, what is that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I hate spoilers and I hate not knowing. Oh, no. Especially if it's a series that I watched a 1,000 episodes already. I'm like, I should know what's going on. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right. It took a really long time to get to 5th gear, man. Really Yeah. Fucking long. So, yeah, did that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, yeah, I still like to keep it up every now and then. I I mean, I watch a streamer, Pirate Software, on Twitch that I really like, Yeah. Just in the background. And, and he's inspired me to actually start developing my game more and I'm streaming it now on Twitch. Oh, amazing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. Twitch, it's just slash orb and mortar. I try to do it, every day, 10:10 to 12 or something like that where it's showing the development of my WordPress based RPG game that I'm developing. Incredible.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: And that will be based on the same, content as the as the novels?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. It's in the urban world. I'm start I'm using it, as a story structure for it. It'll have a lot of extra stuff, and I'm gonna have to tweak some things so he has more weapons and he can maybe use magic a little earlier than in the book. Spoiler alert.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. But, that's, yeah. So I already have an entire universe to build from, so now it's all about the mechanics. And it's all Yeah. All the content management, all the assets are WordPress based.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So it's, and vanilla JavaScript and SASS styling.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: That's amazing. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone building a a an entire game off of WordPress, but that we'll have to check that out. That's very interesting.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Feel it's it's it's been an interesting ride, and, I'm not using Canvas. So if anybody's listening and they're like, oh, he's using Canvas, probably.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm not. It's straight vanilla JavaScript and styling. Yeah. Nice. Very fun.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Well, yeah. Take I mean, taking a look back again at want from wanting to be a rock star and piercing all the way up to leading teams, you know, I guess, what have what's you know, do you do you miss the days of being purely just an individual contributor, you know, or or do you have you enjoyed the journey all the way to where you are now?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: You know, I'm still an individual contributor in in a sense for what I'm doing. You know, when I worked for Disney for a couple years, I I was full on individual contributor until their their horrible timing structure of canceling contractors happened. And then, you know, Warner Brothers, same thing, individual contributor, and, those were all in the midst of different, you know, job structures and stuff like that, same for Universal. So it's like, I don't care at this point if I'm the builder or the one telling people to build. In the future, I assume that I'll just be managing giant teams and, you know, whatever, move up to a CTO role, the natural progression.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I don't mind, you know, doing the whole recruiting, hiring, firing, meeting setup, collabs, all that kind of stuff, agile. You know? I know everybody hates it and whatever. I mean, I I'm not I'm not seeking it out to be a scrum master, but I can handle it. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Better than others.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: At some point, you'll become a CTO, and you'll be on stage talking to others. So you'll be on a stage, just not as a rock star. Well, you'll be a rock star maybe with somebody.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: And I still release music too. So, that's that it could happen. I could still be a rock star someday. If somebody Yeah. Somebody takes it up, and it's also some of the music is, Orban based.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So Yeah. Definitely Oh, awesome. Finding a lot a lot of ways to incorporate this universe for sure.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah. Maybe maybe, you know, to kinda wrap this conversation of every everything we've learned about you, maybe you could tell everyone where to where to follow along with you on LinkedIn or if you have any other social media. Obviously, where to check out the the book and follow your progress on Twitch would be would be awesome.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Awesome. You if you wanna see anything Orban based or everything Orban based, it's literally Orban order, one word. I'm at that or slash that on all the social medias. Except for Facebook, I had to do the Orbum order because they flagged Orbom order for, like, a weird advertising bug, and it, like, closed I could not make ads on Facebook anymore.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>They thought I was doing something nefarious, so I completely closed that out. And it's it's the Orgim order on Facebook. But, yeah, I got a threads, Instagram, Twitter, x. I've, Twitch, and Discord even. The Discord is open for everything.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, yeah, like I said, oh, and the YouTube too. So the YouTube's where you can see my music, it's being distributed through CD Baby. So I mean, it's everywhere. You just look up, The Orban Order is the band name.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Nice.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Amazing. And, yeah, you can find I I have, like, 3 singles out, that are that are fun. Just power metal stuff, and and, it's yeah. And, that's\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: it. Now you've had to go through a whole branding process, so you're also a brander.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Dude, marketing. Yeah. I didn't know how hard, book marketing was. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm luckily in a tech sector where I work for a lot of marketing teams. So it completely coincides.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, running ad campaigns on AMS, you know, Amazon, media services and running ad campaigns on Facebook ads and and, just handling I mean, I did all the typesetting for my book too in InDesign. I just Nice. I had to learn that. Because I'm I I know all the creative suite, you know, I do all my own video editing too. And, you know, just just from the years of doing stuff, and, the, you know, and I do on my own music editing on Garage Band.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it's, like once you once you can work one program, everybody copies everyone. Right? So it's it's you know, you could pick if you wanna do it, you could do it. Not the best at any of it, but Yeah. I can release it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, awesome. It it's so cool to hear, you know, we've we've talked to a lot of others who have this creative spark in them. So it's it's been great to hear everything in in your journey, and it's I'll definitely follow along and grab a copy of that book because I like sci fi books. I don't I don't like biographies or things like that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So we'll put your links and all the information so people can follow along, but we definitely appreciate the conversation today.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Awesome. Thanks so much. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Scott. And\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: there's an audio book too if you guys don't wanna read.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I like to read. I like to read.\u003C/p>","Always thought, you know, I'm gonna I'll I'll just be a rock star, you know, no biggie. You know, I'll just go through the school thing and then be be famous for that. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Trace Talks. Today, we have Scott Adrian. I'm Pedro. We also have John here as well, who you may recognize from past episodes because we run this podcast. Don't we, John? Yep. Any anyway, yeah. Scott, you know, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background. I know you are a WordPress engineer, have been for some time transitioned from different, you know, backgrounds. Like, many of the folks we talked to maybe started off in a different industry, and ended up in, you know, in tech and in in web tech. So Mhmm. I'd love to hear about your career, what got you to this point, and, you know, what brought you from professional piercer to musician to, you know, maybe a career in technology? Right. Money. Yeah. That's Yeah. That's what. Yeah. He's a good driver. Wait. There's money in tech? Yeah. Exactly. That was the only one that made it. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, when I, yeah, when I started out, I was like, oh, okay. So I'm gonna be famous. That wasn't a question. It's like, what am I gonna be famous for? My dad was a long time rock star and lead guitarist and stuff in bands. So, I always thought, you know, I'm gonna, I'll, I'll just be a rock star, You know, no biggie. You know, I'll just go through the school thing and and then be be famous for that. And then yeah. Music was hard and I got into piercing, because I wanna make money at a young age. And, you know, back in 2,000, 2,000 ish, you know, 2,002, 3, Piercings were hot. Right? Everybody everybody was trying to it was getting more popular tattoos, piercings, and and, it really helped that everybody underage had somebody else that was underage that could pierce them. So, yeah, I I, that's how I that was my first business. And then when I turned 18, I actually started working in shops because I'm like, okay, well, doing so well, you know, out, you know, an underground, go to a shop and there'll be gangbusters. But yeah. Yeah. You you learn early on when you start working in shops. I was in Hollywood for a couple years. It's called the Walk of Fame tattoo. And on top of being horrifying and tear terribly scary, you know, working long nights in downtown Hollywood, There's no money in piercing specifically. I can't talk about tattooing. They seem to be doing well, and I I have long time friends that are still, you know, very successful tattoo artists. But, yeah, Pierce Piercing's such a novelty. And people that come to shops, you know, walk ins are are like, here, I wanna nose. I want my ear. And, you know, you're getting $20 on a Saturday. Yeah. And, yeah. Didn't didn't work out for me. Yeah. So what so then what prompted that transition into, like you know, obviously, there was there's a bit more money to be made, you said, in in the web stuff, but what was sort of that initial catalyst to get you thinking about programming? Yeah. So I I I'm also really curious because I also you know, I I I wanted to be a professional golfer. I was like, oh, that's that's me. You need to be a professional golfer. And then there you know, I'd You need to be good at golf for that, John. Well, I I forgot about that part. Yeah. Yeah. But but when I made that transition when I made that transition into web design or websites, I just had a friend who said, hey. I'll pay you $50 to build a website. So I'm just curious because that was what it was for me that kind of got me into web design and technology. So I'm kinda curious to hear your story about how you've gotten to tech, but also what was your first paying job for that? Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Because, you know, I've been doing web development for, you know, closer to 20 years, on my own. Because originally, when I was in bands, we needed a website, we needed a Myspace, custom Myspace layout. And so that's what that was my first instances of HTML, CSS. Just I think I think for all 3 of us, that was probably probably a similar story. Exactly. So I knew I could do it. And, and, you know, it it was, you know, it's a skill I was gaining just for fun and just for my own stuff. Same with graphic design. I was making all the albums and shirt designs and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, the the catalyst, was really I got a job for 1 stop Internet. This was in 2,000, Yeah. Because I left I left in 2006 or 7. Yeah. So I was there for a while. I, I started working in the warehouse at 1 Stop Internet and they're, they're an outsourced e commerce company, basically large companies would be like, Hey, we need you to be our e commerce. So they, they build the website. They house, they had warehouses, they'd store all the product and they'd handle all the distribution themselves and all their shipping and all that stuff. So website and fulfillment all in one. So we had giant names. I mean, we had Von Dutch, giant name. We had we had, you know, Betsy Johnson, you know, Vestal Watches, Lululemon, True Religion, giant giant, brands, that that were housing other stuff, and we were doing the websites. And I was picking items for the warehouse at first. They promised me a job in the photo studio. So after after a little while and that finally happened, I started doing high volume photo retouching. And that's when I got on a computer, and I finally was getting paid to do work on a computer. It was photo, Photoshop and 1,000 images a day, you know, but, I ended up, you know, moving up and kind of running the post production. I was post production coordinator for years. And then, and I started doing little web work for them because clients would need like a slideshow to see the images that they were, that we were taking for them and they wanted to view them. So I'd make these little flash websites and and these little Dreamweaver based websites, with sliders and all that kind of stuff. And, it it kinda sucked because one stop Internet built websites. Mhmm. Like, for these clients, giant giant ecommerce websites. And I never had a chance to work for that department ever, which is crazy. I I tried. I I tried to apply it. It's just like, hey, any openings and, you know, and they just had these very talented programmers working there, you know? So, so I left I left for, an e commerce company who took a chance on me to like run their website. And, it was on asp.net storefront, asp.net storefront, which was not a great first, website to be running and work on. But luckily, they needed a blog, and, we went for WordPress. And that's where I first kinda got introduced into WordPress. And, so at that point, Piercing was side job, and, you know, I only did on the weekends or whenever the shop needed me. And, all all my income was coming from, you know, website work. And, yeah. And that's when I first started working in WordPress just with custom themes and plugins like everybody else does. And, and, eventually we needed some extra stuff and I would jump into the code and, Yeah. From there, I I, you know, to to gain more knowledge, I was doing a lot of side jobs, a lot of freelance work. I had a lot of time at this gig. Yeah. I played a lot of video games and watched a lot of series of animes, so much, that, yeah, I ended up being able to do a bunch of side work while I was working there. And, it was yeah. Just Craigslist. That was the Alpha main got out 50% of my income was Craigslist jobs, building websites. What was the initial driver to WordPress? Was it the ease of use? I honestly never got into WordPress myself. I was a Dreamweaver designer, which Yeah. It was. The ease of use. It was really easy to pick up. And at that time, I was scrappy, so I was just pulling in third party themes and plugins, hard coding CSS to just make them look how they wanted. You know, I'd get something very close, 3rd party, and I just manipulate it. And, yeah, it was easy money, really. That that was how it got to that point. And Yeah. Do you do you think, like, specializing on WordPress allowed you to do that? Because typically in, like, the industry, we see there's, you know, sort of a debate on having a broad set of you know, being a full stack engineering, having a broad set of of tools at your disposal to really focusing in on a niche and being an expert in maybe WordPress or some specific Right. Language, for example. How has that kind of shaped your career trajectory thinking, you know, that you started in WordPress and and continue to focus on on that as a niche? Yeah. You know, it wasn't a conscious decision. I think like everybody else, I got pigeonholed. My resume started one way and it just kept growing that way. And then at a certain point, it was, you know, I was the WordPress guy. So, you know, I started working for Beachbody's and, and working in their in their coaching department. We're developing a whole coaching platform in WordPress. And I was working some with some really, Austin Passi, big WordPress name. He ran the LA WordCamp a few years, and, they brought him in. And I I absorbed as much as I could because at that point, I was, like, the least experienced. I I I could do whatever you wanted, but I would do it wrong because I was just using old old people's code and, you know, just piecemealing things together. But he he showed me like, oh, I can just build a theme. Oh, I can build a plugin, you know, to make this happen. And, and there was other guys on the team too that were really advanced. And, yeah. So that's what I did. I faked it till I made it, and, and then I And you made it. And I made it. Yeah. So I had that on my resume, moved on to more jobs, you know, investors.com, like, one of at the time, one of the highest trafficked WordPress sites in the world. I jumped on as a lead, and I was leading, you know, 4 or 5 devs, all WordPress based. And, we were just developing custom themes and plugins for them. And, you know, I started working with they I forget the scenario, but they brought XWP in, which is a big name in the WordPress world as well. They they're the ones that did, like, a collaboration with Google to get, like, the Google AMP plugin and, and, other things. And, Thierry and some of the other guys, I would literally have them in my, in my office with me. And these guys were like core contributors to the max, to WordPress. And, again, I just absorbed so much. I'm talking, I learned unit testing there. I learned sanitization and escaping. All the you know, I already know how to program, but I learned coding standards from from that company, while pretending I already knew them, you know, which was a big theme. Yeah. And, Yeah. And and so, that's that got me to the expert level, really. Mhmm. And I knew at that point, you know, any job I take going forward, I'm asking double and I'm, you know, and Yeah. And they're gonna, you know, they're gonna pay it. Yeah. What was that transition like into leadership leading a team of 4 or 5 devs when, you know, 10, 15 years prior, you're like, I'm a be a professional tattoo artist, You know? And now you're leading people as sort of, like, a boss almost. What was that like, that first leadership role? Yeah. I don't I guess it was weird. You know, when you're in a place of authority, it's all about appearance. As long as they're they think you're the authority and they think that you know what you're talking about and you and you're not completely horrible at your job and and you're not completely talking out of your ass. I was very good at, figuring things out on the fly while I was talking. So still am. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess it wasn't that bad. You know, they weren't I mentored a couple people who are really junior in the WordPress world. So, you know, you learn the most when you're teaching, and that really helped, helped me develop them into the dev that I needed them to be for for what I was doing and what I needed them to do. So, yeah, it wasn't that bad. I was I wasn't too nervous about leading the team, but it was surreal. You know? Because I never really thought about the trajectory. I just thought I'm gonna make money being the doer, the code monkey. You know what I mean? And, but, yeah, I mean, I got old. Yeah. You know? I got experience. Yeah. Well well, as you've gotten older, you've maintained these side projects. You just released a book 6 months ago, so congrats on the book. And then I saw that you also you also released, like, an RPG game on the side or something. So as you've Sorry. As you progress Yeah. You're you're correct. Yeah. So, last in 2023, I first published my my first sci fi fantasy cover, you know, novel, called Orbum. And, another another great learning experience, knew nothing about the book industry, made a lot of assumptions, and, I just recently rereleased it because I did it wrong. Amazing. In January 28th, I rereleased all of them properly. Got it. And, and actually book 2 is on preorder now, Myroupelia, which should be out July 1st. It's gonna be a 4 book series. Never thought I was gonna be an author. I read a lot of sci fi books at one point. I was going through, like, 20 or so series. And I basically I have a really bad habit of if I'm spending a lot of time doing something that, that I'm not making money on, I feel, you know, that I'm not being productive. It's that really bad ambition kinda bug. Yeah. Well, it's it's definitely a really good timing this year. I think I think 2024 is a great year for sci fi having, you know, just seen Dune. And and all the stuff that's coming later this year. I think it's it's definitely a great year to be, you know, releasing that that type of material. Yeah. I wonder if that came from, you know, all the the free time that you mentioned that you had that you were watching all these anime and playing video games. Like, maybe that sort of inspired the the book as well. Yeah. I mean, it the story structure's definitely inspired by tons of the anime I I was watching. You know, play I played a lot of video games when I was younger. I do not have time to do that, you know, in the last 10 years. But, yeah, the, I, I, I think I had a, I had a big, you know, childhood of media. You know, we always had a TV. We always had movies. We always had video games. And, so, yeah, everything's ingrained in my brain, and it's all just straight imagination. I don't, you know, the research I do for the books is are for the technical scientific terms because it's technically a hard sci fi book, because I do a lot of explaining of things that don't exist. So, but, yeah, more more more or less, I don't plot the entire thing out. I kinda know where it's gonna go in my head to the very end. But, yeah, the main the main, driving force is I wanna know what happened next. You know? I wanna know what they're gonna say and to make people laugh because I I my natural timbre is snark. You know? Yeah. Same. Same. Yeah. Do you think that that draws, like, the sort of the the authorship and the tech world sort of draw a parallel in that sense of, you know, you're sort of creating something out of nothing, especially when designing, you know, WordPress sort of extensions or plugins or coding things from, from scratch? Yeah. I mean, if, if you ever get a chance to read it, and being in the industry you're in and knowing where I came from, you're going to get a lot, a lot of the same, you're going to get a lot of the corporate world in there. A lot of the same terms, programming terms, and stuff like that. Things that maybe some people wouldn't, offhand know, like smoke testing and regression testing, you know, talking about his systems and, just little things like that, which, spill into the, the novel. Cause you know, these are scientists or they were all working for a corporation and then they all had to run away, you know? So, it's easy to to to make, correlations there, but, yeah, I mean, it's all creative. I feel like as I get more into leadership, I get less creative outlets. So this is good for me, you know, rather than, you know, leading a team or managing a team. Like, I, you know, I used to be making things all the time, that kind of stuff. And, you know, and when you get to a certain level, it's a lot about maintenance and it's a lot about keeping things afloat, especially in the industry now where budgets are getting cut left and right. Nobody wants to build a brand new this, you know, except for AI. Everybody wants a brand new AI tool. So Yeah. Yeah. What's your, what's your take on that? What are we using AI for? Love AI. Right. I'm not against AI. You know, I've been working with OpenAI's API and using it for various things. I use chat gpt all the damn time. I'm not a prompt engineer, but, man, I hate writing, you know, array building loops sometimes. So I'm just like, write me a function that takes this and moves the, you know, the key to the end and then move this key to the beginning and then merges them all the oh, dude. I just created a an object merging function. I I just don't have the patience to merge a bunch of objects together as long as they have true as their key value or whatever. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So With your Love that. Do you do you explore other new tech? Because, obviously, AI is very popular, but any other new tech or how much time do you even have to explore new tech or interest? Yeah. I don't, kind of both. I don't have interest, and I don't have time. Yeah. I don't know. You think I I always say the the career is is for the money. Right? And then use the money to do things that make you happy. So I don't put I am very interested in the tech world. I keep up with, the general tech industry and general things. I mean, I work with people that are like, Oh, look at this new API. Oh, look at this new endpoint. Look at this new, tool, this new whatever framework. And they keep me in the know. Luckily, You know, I'm not sitting there building a sandbox of, of the newest, you know, React threads or whatever. And I'm just and we're like, look. It's like, oh, okay. Yes. I love that. What are we using it for? It's I really have to learn by doing something that is being productive and and for a reason. And that's how I've learned my entire career. I think it's, you know, I think it's very valuable too when I find other programmers. You know, if I'm if I wanna hire somebody, that they have the skill set to just pick something up and learn it when they're doing it, and then applying it accordingly. And that goes to the whole philosophy of, you know, college degree versus the same amount of time as experience in work. Yeah. You know, I don't I didn't go to college for doing any of this. I didn't I I did a weird trade school just to have a certificate on my LinkedIn, And, and it's never slowed me down or stopped me. Yeah. So I don't care about that. If I'm gonna look at somebody's resume, you know, it it's I'd way rather you have 4 years working for, butt effing startup, whatever Yeah. Company, you know, where they were making you wear multiple hats and you, you know, and you still have a positive referral. So Yeah. You know? And outlook on life. And you're still happy and you wanna keep going. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Dude. Yeah. That's probably the opposite of Pedro. I I probably get 4 or 5 text messages or tweets a day from Pedro telling me to check out new tech. And, like, I can't pay I can't pay attention to all of this. I'm the, yeah, I'm the tools fanatic. It's just like, what can make me more efficient so that I can go sit on a beach somewhere? I yeah. I I have a buddy, Scott Weaver. Same same exact way. I hate looking at his setup. Somebody give it give me that give me that that bash. What do you what do you he builds his own bashes for his own computer just to make setting it up quick. I'm like, give me that. He's given me it. He's given it before. Like, when you do a computer transfer from 1 to 2, I was like, oh, it's such a drag. He built an entire bash function that takes all the apps he likes and takes all the setups he does and it installs it all and just runs it. Wow. And I'm just like, you know, he has a repo for it, and I just take it. Incredible. Yeah. But that's I know I know my my work style. I know my personality traits. I know my time, my multitasking and time structures, and, you know, it's just not me. I can appreciate people that do live that way. You know? Yeah. Do you are you still able to find any time to to I think you mentioned you don't really watch too much anime or play too many games. You know? What kind of a personal life do you have? I I think I I think I hear kids, so there's also potentially some kids who take up time. Yeah. Apologize for that if it's loud. Let me know because I got the headphones in. But, yeah, wife and 2 kids, 4 dogs. I have plenty of other things I need to do during the day. Yeah. Plenty of time to spend with there and happiness that they bring. And, you know, my youngest, has autism and, she's the one that's usually around when she's not in in school. Yeah. And, so, you know, I'm I'm kind of the the main tear caretaker for her as well. I I handle all her therapy sessions and all the paperwork and all that kind of stuff. So that's that's also an extra time spent that I need to focus on as well. You know, I have documenting her progress and stuff too. Just teaching her to brush her teeth right now. She's 8. I'm teaching her to brush her teeth right now, and I have to, like, document it, you know, how how her progress going and stuff like that. So, you know, I do watch anime, though, still. I just caught up with 1 piece because I did watch all the way to the, Wano saga and then I ran out of episodes and this was 2014 or something, 2015. Holy crap. Getting back to it. So I finished the Wano, recently, because because I'll tell you why too. It's because my other kid, my my oldest, she's 10. She plays Roblox and I kept seeing these freaking luffy 5th gear avatars. And I'm like, what is that? And I hate spoilers and I hate not knowing. Oh, no. Especially if it's a series that I watched a 1,000 episodes already. I'm like, I should know what's going on. Yeah. Right. It took a really long time to get to 5th gear, man. Really Yeah. Fucking long. So, yeah, did that. So, yeah, I still like to keep it up every now and then. I I mean, I watch a streamer, Pirate Software, on Twitch that I really like, Yeah. Just in the background. And, and he's inspired me to actually start developing my game more and I'm streaming it now on Twitch. Oh, amazing. Yeah. Twitch, it's just slash orb and mortar. I try to do it, every day, 10:10 to 12 or something like that where it's showing the development of my WordPress based RPG game that I'm developing. Incredible. And that will be based on the same, content as the as the novels? Yeah. It's in the urban world. I'm start I'm using it, as a story structure for it. It'll have a lot of extra stuff, and I'm gonna have to tweak some things so he has more weapons and he can maybe use magic a little earlier than in the book. Spoiler alert. Yeah. But, that's, yeah. So I already have an entire universe to build from, so now it's all about the mechanics. And it's all Yeah. All the content management, all the assets are WordPress based. So it's, and vanilla JavaScript and SASS styling. That's amazing. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone building a a an entire game off of WordPress, but that we'll have to check that out. That's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Feel it's it's it's been an interesting ride, and, I'm not using Canvas. So if anybody's listening and they're like, oh, he's using Canvas, probably. I'm not. It's straight vanilla JavaScript and styling. Yeah. Nice. Very fun. Well, yeah. Take I mean, taking a look back again at want from wanting to be a rock star and piercing all the way up to leading teams, you know, I guess, what have what's you know, do you do you miss the days of being purely just an individual contributor, you know, or or do you have you enjoyed the journey all the way to where you are now? You know, I'm still an individual contributor in in a sense for what I'm doing. You know, when I worked for Disney for a couple years, I I was full on individual contributor until their their horrible timing structure of canceling contractors happened. And then, you know, Warner Brothers, same thing, individual contributor, and, those were all in the midst of different, you know, job structures and stuff like that, same for Universal. So it's like, I don't care at this point if I'm the builder or the one telling people to build. In the future, I assume that I'll just be managing giant teams and, you know, whatever, move up to a CTO role, the natural progression. And I don't mind, you know, doing the whole recruiting, hiring, firing, meeting setup, collabs, all that kind of stuff, agile. You know? I know everybody hates it and whatever. I mean, I I'm not I'm not seeking it out to be a scrum master, but I can handle it. Yeah. Better than others. At some point, you'll become a CTO, and you'll be on stage talking to others. So you'll be on a stage, just not as a rock star. Well, you'll be a rock star maybe with somebody. And I still release music too. So, that's that it could happen. I could still be a rock star someday. If somebody Yeah. Somebody takes it up, and it's also some of the music is, Orban based. So Yeah. Definitely Oh, awesome. Finding a lot a lot of ways to incorporate this universe for sure. That's amazing. Yeah. Maybe maybe, you know, to kinda wrap this conversation of every everything we've learned about you, maybe you could tell everyone where to where to follow along with you on LinkedIn or if you have any other social media. Obviously, where to check out the the book and follow your progress on Twitch would be would be awesome. Yeah. Awesome. You if you wanna see anything Orban based or everything Orban based, it's literally Orban order, one word. I'm at that or slash that on all the social medias. Except for Facebook, I had to do the Orbum order because they flagged Orbom order for, like, a weird advertising bug, and it, like, closed I could not make ads on Facebook anymore. They thought I was doing something nefarious, so I completely closed that out. And it's it's the Orgim order on Facebook. But, yeah, I got a threads, Instagram, Twitter, x. I've, Twitch, and Discord even. The Discord is open for everything. And, yeah, like I said, oh, and the YouTube too. So the YouTube's where you can see my music, it's being distributed through CD Baby. So I mean, it's everywhere. You just look up, The Orban Order is the band name. Nice. Amazing. And, yeah, you can find I I have, like, 3 singles out, that are that are fun. Just power metal stuff, and and, it's yeah. And, that's it. Now you've had to go through a whole branding process, so you're also a brander. Dude, marketing. Yeah. I didn't know how hard, book marketing was. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm luckily in a tech sector where I work for a lot of marketing teams. So it completely coincides. I mean, running ad campaigns on AMS, you know, Amazon, media services and running ad campaigns on Facebook ads and and, just handling I mean, I did all the typesetting for my book too in InDesign. I just Nice. I had to learn that. Because I'm I I know all the creative suite, you know, I do all my own video editing too. And, you know, just just from the years of doing stuff, and, the, you know, and I do on my own music editing on Garage Band. And it's, like once you once you can work one program, everybody copies everyone. Right? So it's it's you know, you could pick if you wanna do it, you could do it. Not the best at any of it, but Yeah. I can release it. Yeah. Well, awesome. It it's so cool to hear, you know, we've we've talked to a lot of others who have this creative spark in them. So it's it's been great to hear everything in in your journey, and it's I'll definitely follow along and grab a copy of that book because I like sci fi books. I don't I don't like biographies or things like that. So we'll put your links and all the information so people can follow along, but we definitely appreciate the conversation today. Awesome. Thanks so much. Yeah. Thanks so much, Scott. And there's an audio book too if you guys don't wanna read. I like to read. I like to read.","67ea3f7d-7d56-4022-ab8b-ae2397df6ad1",[340,341,342],"b27a6428-ab10-474e-be8d-72e4e40146ec","3da559f6-d763-414d-82ec-4c1c09927e45","5f68c3c6-6abb-4b51-bc32-dd8ba6f8c44b",[],{"id":134,"number":135,"show":122,"year":136,"episodes":345},[138,139,140,141,142],{"id":142,"slug":347,"vimeo_id":348,"description":349,"tile":350,"length":351,"resources":8,"people":8,"episode_number":352,"published":353,"title":354,"video_transcript_html":355,"video_transcript_text":356,"content":8,"seo":357,"status":130,"episode_people":358,"recommendations":362,"season":363},"dana-lawson","1010549290","Dana Lawson, CTO of Netlify, discusses her unconventional path to tech leadership. She shares insights on effective communication, embracing AI, fostering psychological safety, and balancing technical and soft skills. ","e73894f0-193a-4422-8752-325b956110df",51,6,"2024-10-02","Dana Lawson, CTO at Netlify","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: But I do feel like that connection between creativity and artistry is what developers and technologists crave. Like, what are we doing? We're we're creating a digital world that is for humans to have a presentation layer to experience new and amazing things, and that's that's living.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks. We have a wonderful guest today. I'll let you introduce yourself, Dana. But today, we have Dana, who is, an amazing person.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So go ahead and introduce yourself.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Howdy, y'all. Dana Lawson, CTO of Netlify, x GitHub, x Envisioner, x NewRelecan, x all the things. Great to be on the show. Thanks for having me, Pedro and John.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Of course. We had a great, intro conversation a couple weeks ago with your with you and really enjoyed the conversation. But for those of us who or for those of, the people who might be listening, why don't you let them know who Netlify is and kind of a little bit about what you do there?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Netlify is a activities. My my daily oh, man. Oh, my daily activities. Spreadsheets and email. Duh.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm an executive. No. Netlify is a composable web platform. We help enable web developers and creators alike, take their idea all the way to production. So we connect to your Git repositories.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>No matter what flavor of Git you use, we help you build, design, deploy with a global CDN network with, performance. It's pretty fun. And my daily duties I mean, I'm chief technology officer, but that means a lot of different stuff to a lot of different people. And as I joke, it is mainly spreadsheets and and emails and videos. But, honestly, my job is to inspire, lead, and and break through all the problems that we have, building amazing and compelling software.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I have the product design, and engineering teams. We all work together under my organization.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Amazing. And I know that, you know, now you're you're an inspiring leader. You're a CTO of a company, but it, obviously wasn't always that way. There was, like, a path to get there. And I think you came from a much different background before.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? We had a call about you being sort of an artist and that. So I'd love to hear sort of where your career started and your sort of trajectory and how you got here as a CTO.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean, you know, I am so blessed to be surrounded with a lot of, like, the Silicon Valley greats. You know? And most of them went to MIT and Stanford, but not all of them. Some of them are dropouts too. But I did have the trajectory.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, when I started out being a nerd, I was I was really into art. You know? I mean, I've always loved science and math because I'm one of those people. But, I grew up in Southeast New Mexico, Texas, and I was like, I'm gonna be Georgia O'Keefe. I'm gonna paint.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm gonna draw. Parents weren't really thrilled about going to college for painting and drawing because that means being a poor starving artist. You gotta be really good. In the art world, you gotta be like you first of all, you gotta know some people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Especially when you're alive.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. And you gotta be good. And I was mediocre and knew nobody. So, like, my odds weren't very good, and this is pre Internet. And so on a crazy whim, you know, I was like, what am I gonna do with my life?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I joined the US army. How you go from art art school to the army? Hello? I'm a multifaceted person. And I really letters\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: are the same. Right? Two letters, art army?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I think that, you know, like, you know, it wasn't always great with spelling. I was more of a math person. I should have looked a little little bit closer. But, you know, it's funny because, like, you go and you sign up for the military in the United States, they make you take this test. Well, they used back in the day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think they still do. I mean, I don't do army research anymore. It's called the ASVAB. And, essentially, it determines your military occupation. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, what are you good at? I scored really good on the math stuff. They didn't have an art section. I would have dominated. Go fig.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>They didn't have it. And this job came up in the late nineties. It's like information systems operator analysis developer, like everything tech because they didn't know what to call it. And I was like, computers need air conditioning. And here I am.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Here I am because of that fateful choice of choosing air conditioning because computers needed it, my own, my own need to be comfortable. But, honestly, I loved it. I went to the US computer science school that they had made. I don't know if it's still there. It was in Georgia at the time, and it was an immersive, like, 12 months of, like, bare bones networking to all the way to, like, sea language.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you get out and you're like, okay. And I got I got positioned to, to really create and administer all the military applications. And so from there, it's like, wow. But long story even longer, you know, I was IC. I've been I've been everything you can be in in developing and creating software.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I was a sysadmin. I was dev ops. I was a SRE. Every letter in the alphabet that we attach to, to what our jobs are, I've done them like QA, TPM, TIM, PM. And, you know, I I just got bit with that leadership bug, and I really started going down the path of leading teams and not becoming an individual contributor, and then here we are.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a interesting way to get into a career. There's air conditioning there, so I'm gonna jump in. Did you find that that transition from being an artist, a former art student artist, and then going into army and tech, was that an easy transition for you? Did you really enjoy it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Did you pick it up quickly, or did you just really enjoy the air conditioning?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean, one, I'm in Portland, Oregon, and and today is gonna be a 100 degrees. And I think this entire city is, like, scared. I mean, I'm looking out. I'm not going out today. It never gets this hot.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But no. I mean, you know, I was already doing a lot of stuff in Adobe, like the early Adobe days in graphic arts, and, like, I had back back when Microsoft and front page. I remember that. Did y'all do any of that? Oh, it's probably a file.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I love it. I love it too. Oh, well then, you know, so like I did web design when there wasn't like, you didn't know anything. Like we all know how to make websites. Like I was making some geo cities.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I was doing that. I was a webmaster y'all. Alright? So but I always looked at through this lens of, like, being able to be creative. Like, that is all we actually are.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, maybe it's not you hands to keyboards and you're taking those requirements, but a lot of the times, those early ideas are all you. And the way that we write code is individual to us even though the AIs come and take our jobs. It still is because you get to determine what goes where, how it functions, and how the end user is gonna deal with it. And, like, it can be language frameworks. I mean, you could do it in so many different ways, and it wasn't a weird push for me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It was actually really natural. I was just like, but I'm very curious. I'm one of those people that, like, it don't matter where I'm at. I'm gonna have a good time, and it's very annoying to other people. But to me, I'm like, you know what?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's just how I roll. You know? Because it's not the place you are. It's the people and experiences you have and and who you're with. And so I loved it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I I I I was just like, this is fascinating. I never, in a in a in my wildest dreams, ever thought I would be doing what I got to do. And getting to, like, live from man, the first job they gave me in the military was changing backup tapes. Like, they didn't trust me to do shit except change tapes, and they were smart because I had Yeah. I had ruined a bunch of servers at one point, but that's a whole different story.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so they're like, Lawson, you get to change the tapes. And so I got to incrementally, like, grow my skill set and apply it. And it was great. It was a great job. But I do feel like that connection between creativity and artistry is what developers and technologists crave.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, what are we doing? We're we're creating a digital world that is for humans to have a presentation layer to experience new and amazing things, and that's that's living.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I I I feel that most of the people we talk to as well, on this podcast and otherwise just in our daily sales life. We're speaking to a highly technical audience, you know, selling our product, and most of them are creatives in some capacity. A lot of musicians, tons of musicians.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think almost everyone at Directus plays some kind of musical instrument. So I I definitely agree there. So what was that like? The yeah. Go ahead, John.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Well, I just wanna really pause to to call out that you changed backup tapes. When I first got into tech and I realized that backups were being kept on tapes, literal tapes, I was so shocked because I I was selling data center equipment. I'm like, wait a second. Mhmm. People are still backing up on tapes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So Oh, yeah. I just had to call that out that that that brought back some memories from my past days that and probably still to this day. I know some obvious obviously, digital backups are huge, but, I'm impressed that you were changing those actual tapes because I always I knew those people existed, but you were one of them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, man. It's it's it it was not a glamorous job. You literally go into a colo with a tray, and, you're like, it's the a day because you have a b tapes. Alright? And there's a software called Veritas.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>No. It's this software called Veritas. Oh my gosh. People are gonna have to go Google this shit. Alright.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I sold that stuff.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: You sold Veritas. Oh, man. No. But, yeah, it is. It is amazing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. Tapes. Well, we we should have a whole, like, discussion one day about, like, tech of past, like, the tech museum.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Sorry, Pedro. Go ahead.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I I didn't remember because I had\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: to call it out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. No. Absolutely. Maybe that's another another show we could put on Directus TV digging into the tech past. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: No. That's awesome. And so what was that moment that for you kind of transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager? You you'd mentioned you sort of got into leadership. You really liked leading teams.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What was that initial pivot point, from being an individual contributor to a leader?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: You know, I mean, I think a lot of of people that I've met that have been in these positions, there's something that honestly is natural that comes with it. And for me, it wasn't this, like, I wanna be a manager. I absolutely did not wanna tell people what to do. I can't like people telling me what to do, believe it or not. But I just wouldn't stop my mouth from running.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I was like, we should do this. We should do this. Here's why. And I'm like, on my soapbox just saying, here's why we're here's here's how we're gonna unlock this. And they're like, listen.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Why don't you just tell everybody what to do? You're doing it anyway. They don't want a sideline manager. You might as well just be it. And I was like, well, you know, I've never done that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, I've done, I guess, different leadership stuff because naturally you have those opportunities in the military that kind of force you into, like, these these different things to do. And I don't know. I've had jobs and jobs of days past. And, I just feel like, you know, at that moment, I was like, oh, okay. And from there, it was just like, okay.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How do I change this directory? The hardest transition, I think, really was, you know, when you become into leadership and you start leading teams, a lot of us have been individual contributors, and you're like, wait a minute. And and if you have a good culture, I hate that us versus them culture. It's like your boss is just an adult too trying to make money. There ain't no us versus them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, if there is, like, go somewhere else. And so I really just would approach it. The hardest part for me was not separating myself and saying, oh, you know, now this is my new role, but more of, like, this isn't my role. Like, that's not your like, for me, it was like that that's not your job no more. And that's still hard for me where you could get so immersed with just, like, in the flow zone of of writing code.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And you're like, as a leader, like, yeah. You can as a frontline manager, you may do some of that, but that's not your job no more. Like, if you wanna be great, your job is to empower, enable, align, and motivate, and realize what your role is. And maybe you're a team where you're a player coach and you get to still do that, but that's not your primary. Your engineers, that's their primary.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that was the hardest transition for me making that. But to get to that, I mean, it kinda came a little naturally. And then from there, it just was like that that hunger to take on more. And, you know, it was funny because, again, I never expected, like, you know, a lot of people are like, one day, I will run my own company or I'm gonna be a CEO. I was like, no way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I never thought that. I just always wanted to do amazing things with amazing people and and hopefully change the world. Like, to me, that's more important. But, yeah, I mean, it wasn't it wasn't a hard trajectory. I think, again, like, separating what you used to do seems to be the hardest part for people that transition.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there's only been, like, 1 or 2 times in my career where I've ever met anybody that was like, I wanna be a manager. And I'm like, what? Like, that's your goal? Like, why? Like, why do you wanna do that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And and usually, when they wanna be a manager and they're that resound, it's for the wrong reasons, like, straight up. It's not it not all the time, but I mean, I've heard one person's like, oh, I wanna be a manager. So why do you wanna be a manager? Because I could tell everybody what to do, and I I could quit fighting battles and, like, we'll just I could just get it done. And I was like, what planet do you live in?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, because people I said I said, welcome to management. Your job is just fighting battles and trying to get, you know, people to to to agree and commit or disagree and commit, but commit is your out is your long goal. And so, like, it's you really feel like a used car salesman. Half the time going like, no. So I no.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That price is not gonna work. I'm sorry. This is not gonna work. Yeah. See, it's not if you have a fantasy of command and control and leadership, like, again, you gotta find that the culture that that's how that's how they vibe.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>They're out there. But like most places where a lot of people are happy to work, they don't want that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. You mentioned putting down some of the tasks that you had previously done as an IC and and finding that a little bit of a struggle to put those tasks down. And then you also mentioned kind of fitting right into leadership. Was that was there any learning curve, or is your personality one where you whatever the task is on your plate, you'll figure out and do it? And then I guess the second part of that question is, were there parts?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because you you didn't go in searching for leadership. So did you get into leadership and managing teams and say, oh, man. This spreadsheet stuff sucks. You know? Like, I don't like this part, but I'll do it anyways.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But so I guess what was that learning curve like, and were there parts where you're like, oh, I didn't even know I'd have to do this stuff?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, man. You know, I think the actual learning curve is is not knowing what you do need to shift and having to grow into that on the other side of the house because you can really look really shallowly and be like, well, what's the big difference? You're just breaking down tasks and giving projects out. That's what leadership is. Absolutely not.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think the learning curve is really dialing into, okay, well, how do I really start having effective communication? Like, obviously, I was somewhat good at it. I'm now in this position, but how do I refine it? How do I talk to different personalities? Because as a tech leader, an IC, you're just talking to mostly other engineers, sometimes product people, but they're still your people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? Now when you become into leadership, you have different stakeholders. And I think the biggest opportunity to learn is to understand how to speak their language, how to communicate effectively, and how to distill that information down so that there's still alignment between both parties so that you're not communicating in a way where this side hears something different than this side. And sometimes that can happen because breaking down really audacious technical things for people that are more on the business side, sometimes when they're motivated by different things, they'll hinder different things. And the example I give is, like, you know, let's say a success manager comes to you and says, so where are we at with that bug?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And and and the engineer is like, well, we're gonna be code complete in 2 days, and we're gonna ship it tomorrow. Great. You're shipping it tomorrow. It's like, no. No.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>No. No. No. Stop. Stop.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Stop. Stop. Yes. Technically, we are shipping it into staging and integration tomorrow, and there's still more behind that. And what you mean by code complete means something different to go to market.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So you have to be really that translator or you're gonna cause friction. And as a manager, guess what your only job really, really, really, really is, is to remove friction. At the at the end of the day, your job is to remove friction. And the way that you do that is to to the the the morning's problems that cascade into the night. And you're constantly being agile and saying, where do I help people not run into anything that's impeding them from what they're trying to do?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's really all you gotta do. So I think that was the hardest kind of, like, is is is and then and then as you go further into it, right, like your frontline manager, you're like, okay. Maybe I'm talking to support. Maybe I'm talking to marketing. You go to director.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Now the table stakes are like, now you're now you're learning the economics of operating and running a business. Right? K? Now it's like contribution margins, cost of goods sold, CapEx, OPEX, all these fin financial terms that you think we have acronyms? Go talk to an accountant.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>They have just as many. K? And sales, I don't even know if you're talking about half time. BDR, SDR. I'm like, I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I do now though, but that's the stuff that like as an engineer, you don't learn that. Nobody taught there's no school to teach. There's no engine. We can go like I said, you can go to Stanford, MIT. They ain't gonna teach you about how to look at a financial forecast weighted against 2 growth motions and and outputs and forecasted.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, it's all things that maybe you took a a side business class, but most of the time you're learning it. You're learning it on the job as you as you move up that corporate ladder.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That's wild. I think that, you know, I I just personally, that's something that I've been focused on a lot is really understanding different points of view, and it's something that I sort of I don't know. I mean, maybe it's the Libra in me just trying to, like, balance everyone and play like the the diplomat in most situations. But what do you think that you pull from, to to have that sort of knowledge now and being that translator and being able to effectively communicate and and be that diplomat between, you know, your teams?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean, I have a big mouth, Pedro, so, like, you wouldn't believe this, but, like, active listening is so important and really just practicing on my mind runs a 1000000 1000000 miles a minute. Like, I am like I've I've main I've I've been able to challenge my ADHD into something productive, which is good, not good. Okay? But it's really about taking that moment and forcing myself to really go into active listening mode and pushing against those instinctual, I need to go. I need to execute.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I need to push because you're so trained to have maximum productivity. And and in software engineering, it's about that tempo of delivery. And then when you're on the other side and you're working through really how do I express this to 100 of 1000 of users and get to start internally with my team first, like, it it's isn't it is again an art. It is it is something that you have to inherently start to develop. And what I do is I try to spend time just learning their business, understanding their workflows, putting on that product research mindset that, you know, we have as engineers and technologists to say, well, if I wanted to understand my ideal customer profile, well, my ideal customer right now is my partner over here on this side of the business.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How do they work? How do they operate? How can I meet them where they are? And so also just, like, talking to other mentors and, like, people and, like, getting advice and, like, seeking feedback. I don't think I've ever not had a a, you know, an employer review tell me you're too verbose.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, it's a work in progress. I'll always be too verbose. But, like, really taking in that feedback and and trying to understand where we can be better, so that self reflection, those 3 sixties, so all those things that you can do and bringing them in together to understand. But I think active listening, really, which there's a whole bunch of techniques out there to do that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: No. Absolutely. And and do you think that your your experience and your previous background in, you know, the alphabet soup of all the roles has helped in that? Like, you've had a sort of understand the different roles that you that you manage and the different roles that you sort of sell to internally and understand the languages that they speak?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. I mean, I love it. That's where I always encourage people to get out of their comfort zone. Like, do it. Like, I've done so many things that I never won obviously, was qualified for.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So thank you to all those people out there that believed in me, because, like, I don't know if I would've put myself in that position, but here we are. And it's really about taking opportunities and and and finding those spaces within what you know and filling the gap. Right? Like, it's really human nature to double down in the areas where we're comfortable, where we can sit and say, I can just crush it. And in times of duress, we do that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We seek that comfort in in in repetitiveness and consistency. I don't like it. I get bored. I like it sometimes. And most of the time, like, when I'm getting comfortable, I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta go solve.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I gotta go find my next problem. And so I push and I've had the opportunity through the alphabet soup to do stuff that was kind of orthogonal to what I already had known. Like I got a wonderful opportunity to do business development, like pure business development. And I when I got tapped to do that, I was like, are you sure? I was like, I have been an I have been an engineering leader for a 1000000 years.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You want me to do biz dev? Like, that's on the other it is on the other side of the house. I do not even know. Yeah. But they're like, no.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Our business is talking to developer. Our business is expansion. Our business is helping, you know, really the value of our platform be open to everyone. And so when you think of business development, there's nobody better than a technologist that's right in it sometimes. However, you still need that other side of business acumen and that understanding of the sales operation and motion to be able to be effective because at the end of the day, the stakes are different, and and it's just a different type of ball game than delivering software.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that experience alone, I'm like, like, you can't go to you you can't go to school to get to learn that. And to me, it just strengthens that the inner team empathy that you need to have a startup because you're all pushing for the same goal and it's gonna be uncomfortable even if you are in your sweet spot. You you're gonna have moments in your trajectory where you're like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? And and having empathy holistically helps everybody be better to deliver what they're doing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You can't just have a well oiled machine on one side of your house and then the other not be working or it's all gonna fail.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: No. I I absolutely agree in it. And, you know, I've seen that at the different companies that I've been in. Sometimes it's hard to align, especially when it's the technical teams versus the less technical teams and having being able to speak that common language. Is that something that obviously, they don't teach that in school, like you've mentioned.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Is that something that you've taught as a manager to the the folks that you manage on the technical side, like balancing, you know, the technical acumen with the people skills and sort of the the goals of the business, which are, you know, ultimately to to earn revenue and keep everyone employed?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Heck. Yeah. I mean, I think that's my number one job. Right? Like, I'm always trying to get my leaders to work me out of a job.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, the best the best, you know, example of leadership is the person behind you taking your job or them going on to do the job you were doing. That's it. That's all I live for is to see see the people that I had the opportunity to partner with, go on and do bigger, better things, and me having a small little piece of that narrative. And hopefully being positive. I know it ain't all roses, but I think that's something that you have to do because it doesn't, you know, I talk about, oh, it all comes naturally.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This is the part of the house that don't come naturally. This is the part where you have to be curious. You have to have your humility low and do a little homework, do a little research, and and try to meet them in the common ground. And I try to do that. Like, a lot of us have been utilizing, you know, objectives, key results, or other frameworks, and they can get so convoluted with with what you see the lens of the world.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And as an executive, it's about that abstraction so that everybody can understand it. If they can't, then why why? And so from a manager training perspective, manager enablement is so important unless, you know, I don't think a lot of places are gonna get managers and be like, listen. I expect you to be a career manager. So, like, I ain't gonna teach you nothing new.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Just keep the job rolling. Like, I don't know. I've been around for a hot minute. That's how it was in my day when we had cubicle cities. You were just, like, waiting for somebody to retire to get your job, to get the next job.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's not like that, and it hasn't been like that. And so, again, as a leader, if you have your goal set on really raising the bar on your team and getting them to the next level, it's finding those opportunities and those skill gaps and then teaching them that that common language. And there's so many there's so many darn resources because it's not just business speak, but when you have also a growing company and a global customer base, you also need to know culturally, like, the nuances. And there's some great books out there. I always recommend the cultural map.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's it's a book that helps you distinguish really how if you're like an American, how you show up or Western society. And it's really an interesting read. And I think those are some of the things that I try to encourage my leadership team as they're working on that voice is be customer centric, internal and external. And that means business acumen and speak, but also just human to human and understanding how they how they were brought up in this world and how they culturally represent themselves.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: So I think it goes\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: hand in hand.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So many nuances to it because, you know, yeah, it's not just internally between the different teams and the way that they speak, but also culturally, you know, you've got companies that are now global with remote work just being sort of the the default in a lot of these areas. So maintaining that company culture is also important, and these small little things can cause a rub between, you know, the Americans and the Europeans. They have totally different styles of work life balance and and culture and everything. So, yeah, I think that's that's really important. Are there any specific, like, exercises or resources that, or, you know, strategies that you implement within your teams to try and keep that cohesive\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: culture. I mean, I mean, definitely, you know, we we try to do enablements and trainings, not just for managers, but for people, and they cross the chasm from technical skills to soft skills. Like, you need both, whether it's public speaking. Because public speaking is actually another good opportunity to refine your message house, your internal message house. If you can't say it in an elevator pitch, then you're probably not speaking common enough language so that people can understand your value.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I always recommend, like, get some speaker training. Believe it or not, I've had it. They teach you some tips. They're really, really good. But in addition to that, I would also say that, you know, some good resources would be writing things down with clear lines of ownership to also help clear up some of the ambiguity.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because, again, when you're talking about multicultural teams, from many, many different countries and and and English is second language for peeps. I mean, at Netlify, I think we have 17 countries represented in our in our little amazing startup. That's a lot of different people from a lot of different places doing a lot of different things. As we utilize tools like the DAISY, drivers, approvers, contributors, inform, and these frameworks so that you can drive decision making. And sometimes you have to leverage just written.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because maybe maybe maybe maybe you're having a block where there's friction within the the spoken communication. A lot of people can read better than they can speak, self included. Right? Like, I can I can I can speak I can read Spanish all day and I can speak it? But, I think that there's those opportunities too and other things that you can utilize to find that alignment.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I'm a big fan of DCs and RACES to really ensure you have clear ownership and that that's been, understood. And then also, you know, really just pushing a written culture. Like, don't keep stuff in the ether. And there's so many come on now. Like, there's so many tools that do it for you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, 4 years ago, we didn't have a little AI recorder that did a transcript and a summary. You can do all that now. Don't tell me you can't. And I I tell people, I'm like, you're not comfortable. I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Go use go go go use your your model or your choice, your chatbot of choice. I don't care.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: It's cool. I training even as a training tool. Right? Like, you can have conversations with these things, and that's only improving. I mean, I've done job interviews even where I'm like, simulate this,\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Simulate. You're the you're the you're interviewing me for this role. Here's the resume. Copy paste. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And have a little conversation. Those those types of things can even be be pretty\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Use them. Use the tools. Like, we're all learning them. And, like, again, that's a double edged sword. You're like, I get to understand this, whatever we're saying AI is and how to be better.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think, you know, you gotta be a technophile. You know, that's why you're in this role. You gotta stay on the latest. You gotta love it. You gotta know it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I I do. I encourage it. I'm like, go. Go go go go ask go ask go ask the AI for you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: At the\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: end of the day, like, refining your communication skill set. I I keep seeing these ads for, like, Bob Iger's master class or whatever. I think that the thing he's saying in these ads is just like your your vision or your idea is only as good as your ability to articulate it. And, you know, back to your point, it's like having that ability to to communicate those ideas. If you can't do it verbally, like, at least writing them down and continuing to practice those so that you can win over your team so you could become a better a better leader, better even a better individual contributor.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, everyone's got ideas. So, your ability to communicate that with others, I think, is is probably the point here.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: You better believe it. I mean, shoot. Like, a lot of, a lot of engineers have that that leadership charisma, and they want to refine that side of the house. Let them, like that's the I mean, again, I think that comes back to the harder part. You know, we are so so lucky to have this advanced toolset around us that we can go and source information.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We can ask questions. We can autofill. We can move, but you gotta put in the work on the other side. And so, like, I definitely see, you know, an opportunity with getting people more comfortable and, again, utilizing the tool sets to do so. And that's where, you know, like you said, using it to, like, mock interview.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, yes. Go do that. It's it it some of them are good enough. I mean, some of them are are not great enough, but it gives you also some which is interesting, I think, because people were like, oh, I don't trust the AI and the models, but it's private. It it's better than going into like, can we role play in Slack?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, nobody wants to do that. Like, you\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: know using even, like, there's an app that I've been using called Sonja. I actually spoke to the team a couple weeks ago. They were gathering some feedback, but it's an AI therapy app. And what I kind of started to realize, and maybe this is what some of these apps are sort of you know, they've they've modeled everything after their CBT techniques, and it has, like, an in-depth knowledge of, therapeutic techniques. But what I've realized is there's this barrier when you're talking to a human.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Obviously, you're presenting the best version of yourself. You're not being as raw as you could be.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Mhmm. And\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: there's always some sort of, you know, I don't know, like subjectivism on the other side. Mhmm. And you know that somebody's, you know, judging you in a way where when you talk to the AI, there's zero judgment. You're talking to a computer. Your mind sort of knows it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So you speak to it a little differently. And for something like therapy or something like training, I remember back in college we used to do these sales role plays. Those things are terrifying. You're doing it in front of the class with the professor and it's like, you know, you're getting graded on this. And, to do that with AI, I think would be, you know, it's just such a such an improvement.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Even if it's not perfect, it's it's still going to at least let you drop the guard, speak in your natural voice, and and learn effectively.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I I also think with AI tools and tools in general or I guess when you're dealing with humans, people are afraid to make mistakes in front of other humans. And so with an AI tool or a software tool, you're like, oh, I just made a mistake. I can just redo it again. You know, as a salesperson or as a if I do code wrong and I'm just testing it, it's easy to it's easy to make a mistake.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, Dana, do you find that you know, you you mentioned encouraging people to go try a ai tools and encouraging people to go test new things. Do you find that after you encourage them a couple times, they're more more willing to go and try new things on their own, or they're more willing to kind of understand that making mistakes is okay. Because similar to what you're saying, Pedro, is when I try something with an AI tool and I make a mistake, it's, oh, next turn. Let's go to the next turn. So I feel like the the stigma of making mistakes is removed when you when you have a barrier removed like that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So do you encourage your team members, Dana, to go and try new things and then find them down the road trying more and more things without having to be encouraged to go try those things?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, definitely, man. I love growth mindset. Like, you know, and and and what it comes down to is putting that human imposter syndrome, shame, or what other baggage you have thinking you ain't good enough down and building a place where people can do that and with psychological safety. Like, I totally I tell them all the time. I was like, y'all know that was written by AI because it's so it has all the right commas.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's not saying random shit. It's it's actually a little bit more, more focused. And I just try as a leader to not not be embarrassed about it either. It's like, hey. I'm human too.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think, like, as as somebody that's creating and and producing the next set of advanced developer tools, you best know. Like, how how could you come? Like, where's your street cred? Like, people are using this stuff. I think you have to be really public about it, but also, like, be skeptical.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like like, it's not perfect. I don't a 100% trust it either. But again, I think the benefits are more than the cons right now if you utilize it like a tool and really put the right boundaries of how you're using it to function. But again, for me as a leader, it's taking out the hesitation because you gotta remember. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, tech has been through it. People are freaking like, you know, it's a doom scroll of, like, what's what's what's busted up in Silicon Valley right now. We're having a moment. I hope we're on the other side of it. Those feds cut that interest rate.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I think, like, people are paranoid. Not everybody, but, you know, a lot of people are like, hey. You know, the economy's unstable. Like, I don't wanna be found out. I'm like, no way.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You're gonna be better. Like, if our number one goal again is to remove friction and increase productivity, you you should be doing your part. And, again, I don't think a lot of it is on the the hard skills of, like, utilizing these tool sets to be better. But on the soft skills, having those those moments to be like, I wanna ask it this really dumb question that maybe I wasn't comfortable going in Slack and asking it, or maybe I don't wanna even talk to my mentor. You know, 1, you know, don't put all your eggs into that AI basket and trust it out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I think as a guiding point, like, you're gonna start self serving those answers to yourself. And who doesn't wanna self serve? Like, nobody wants to talk I mean, I love talking to people because, like, that's what I do, and I'm from the 1900. But people this day and age, they won't be talking to nobody. Okay?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. And, like, that's cool. They're gonna talk to you when they want to, but they're gonna be more comfortable behind the keyboard. And we just have to embrace that and find different ways that people do communicate, whether it is short form video or, say, other AI tools, because that's the part that they don't teach you. And as being a leader, like, you have to pay attention to societal norms to understand how the current generation and the next are are taking in information, especially if you're a provider of how to do that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And if we're in software, we all play a part in that experience.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I agree. And I I think that at the end of the day, you know, asking like you were saying, asking the AI, maybe some of the questions that you think might be dumb or, you know, getting sort of that, introductory knowledge about something out of the way. Maybe it does, if used correctly, break down the barriers between human to human connection where it's just like, you know what? I can actually do some of this research on my own in a very quick and concise way before I come to the table with my ideas or Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: How how how important and I think this is a good a good thought on leadership. How important do you think it is to cultivate a a culture internally where, people aren't afraid to ask those what might be considered a stupid question. Because I've I've in the world of alphabet soup, there's so many acronyms you never know. And some people might be afraid to ask that question. What does BDR even mean?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Or, I mean, I hear acronyms all day. I don't know what they mean. So how important is it to build a culture where people are comfortable asking those questions to other humans? You know, you can go ask AI. But I think as a leader, you also wanna have that culture where people aren't afraid to ask questions because in the end, they just wanna be smarter.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean, I think it's a it's a it's a big challenge, and you're always fighting it because, you know, as your team scales, you lose some of those opportunities for interpersonal relationships. Right? We've all heard Dunbar's number of a 150. You can't know everybody past that. I disagree.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I don't know. I came from a small town, and I knew everyone. But, but I do think that you it starts from the top. You know, your job as a leader, especially as an executive leader, is to set the tone and the pace. And, like, if you can show up and be your true authentic self, that gives people permission around you to do so.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that means you're gonna probably f up. You're gonna say something that you're embarrassed about. Like, trust me. There's not a week that goes by that I'm just like, oh, Dana Lawson. Why did that come out of your mouth?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Why are you you? But you know what? I am me, and you're you, and I want you to be you at work because putting energy into being somebody else is taking away from your productivity. I ain't got time for that. I want you to spend those mental calories on on my stuff, which is getting shit done.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think you have to really, again, make it really known. You have to practice what you preach, and then give people those opportunities to find the psychological safety for them to be okay doing that. Again, you know, you can't you could just saunder people's experiences. You're not living them. They're theirs.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So you have to just kind of think about, well, how how would somebody that is 12 hours on the other side of the world take this information if they don't get it from me? How do we form a relationship? So again, establishing a written culture, you know, coming from the top down, being your true authentic self, that means messing up and being being a little scared sometimes you are. It's okay. That, like, that again, that gives permission to mess up too because humans are fallible.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But then finding other avenues where people can feel safe to be able to share and and communicate, whether it's surveys, Slack messages, written, town halls, q and a's. Do all the things because you're gonna need to do a wide splatter to get all the differences on how people need to be felt and heard. But, again, I also try to encourage that, like, one to 1, like, come and ask me. You know? I when my AI startup, AI Migos, you'll pay a premium for the real Dana Lawson.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What the day Dana bought, you know, I don't know, $20, I'll give you yes or no's. I joke about that, but, like, I want people to come to me because there are some things that you're just not gonna get on the other end, but utilize it as a tool. Practice. Like, get yourself comfortable. But when it comes from leadership, there's nothing more powerful than people see that you're authentic, genuine, and real.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because I don't know. People can read it when you're full of baloney. Like, you think they ain't. They are. And maybe not everybody is, but you got some skeptics out there going like, that person full of shit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so, you know, I just say, don't be. Be you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I love this idea of, like the Dana bot or like imagine the CTO at a company of thousands of people, that clearly it doesn't scale. You can't have a one on one conversations with everyone in the company or even the CEO or something like that. But cloning cloning that person's personality. And anyone now can have a one on one with the CEO at any time\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, man.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: By the CTO. And if if you want to book the real thing, like, yeah, that that may happen as well, but anyone at every\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: rag is gonna be crazy. Right? You're rag. You're like, wait a minute. No.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Let me let me make my rag on, lots of howdy's in y'alls. I but here's this you know, I think that that's gonna happen. That's what Hollywood's scared of. I don't blame them. But, you know, the the reality is is, like, you can't take away human to human.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And as a leader again, you just have to you have to stay in line with what's happening out there and who your people are and what's important to them. And right now, you know, it's it's not super easy. There's so much going on. I mean, we were all in a pandemic for 4 years. That was probably the hardest 4 years of leadership for a lot of people because everybody on the planet was fearful.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Nobody knew what was going on. And the stuff that you did know was happening, you didn't know what was really happening because there's so much information and be blasted at you. And it was a really interesting and I believe challenging time for a lot of people, you know, separating that work and life balance. And, like, the world's just gonna continue to get more complex, and there's always stuff going on. And, you know, you can only play your part and do so much.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I always say, like, you know, like, while you're at work, I want you to not have to worry about some of those things, but focus in, get all those chores, get the friction out of place, and just feel good about producing. Because I think a lot of humans feel good when they produce because that's what working and living is, is seeing the output of your energy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I think, yeah, I think sometimes that's important to remember is to still be able to contribute in certain ways. If we go back to a part at the beginning of this conversation, you mentioned having to learn to put down some things that you used to do as an IC. I've seen CTO calendars before, so you might not have any spare time these days. Do you still get to contribute at all?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Do you ever get to code or do anything fun kind of to go back into your IC role, Or is it just all spreadsheets these days?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: If if if I touch production, like, the team would be like, smack. Get out of here. Come in. What do you what are you doing in here? So no.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But no. I do on-site. Like, we're there's always cool stuff coming out. Right? Do I do it at work?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Mostly on the architectural level, I do a lot of, design work implementation and and that piece of it. But day to day, like, I get to I I have to try it out. Like, we release something. I'm the first person that's going down there, and I'm like, oh, look at this new Astro template. And I'm a terrible web developer.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Let me just be really real with y'all. Like, not my forte. More back end. But that's why I love doing web development because I'm so bad at it. And all these tools for they they they make it a little easier.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I'm always trying that stuff out. I'm the 1st to give it a go. I'm like, oh, but, you know, I think you have to know what you're doing and pushing. Like, Netlify, we're always pushing out these core primitives that are really kind of nascent to specific things that you do within, how data transmits from the Internet to your computer and so forth. And there's so much to do on.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so to really get that deep, you you gotta kinda get in there and know what's going on on on different levels of the stack. And so I think, again, you know, for myself, it can't just be all the fun soft stuff. As I say, I'm basically Napoleon Dynamite's brother Kip. I love people, but I love technology too. And so on my free time, because I get my peoples at work, believe it or not, I do a lot of stuff on the side and I'm always trying it out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, yeah, I mean, it's like bits and bobs there. I've gotten really good at macros though. So if you do need some spreadsheet food, like, you know, like, call me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: You're entering those, Excel competitions. You're like, I know how to do that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Shoot. No. I'm like and now I'm I'm telling you, this is one area where I'm like, thank you AI. I'm like, no more. No more.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>No mas. I mean, I could do it, but why would I? When I can be like, the train left the station at 2 PM and the other train left at 3 PM. And there's a person that gets I mean, I love it. AI is good at that kind of stuff.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I hated those questions in school. It just was like, I don't it doesn't matter. Are they gonna crash into each other or not if they're not?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It's like spreadsheets. You're like, if I take if I take column e and then I divide it by c and then I pivot it to your yeah. I know. I don't\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: do it. Yeah. So so what's what's some of the favorite things that you've learned in your climbing to CTO? You know, what's some I guess, since this is kind of a podcast on leadership, what are some of the best leadership things that you've learned that you had no idea you would need to learn or maybe some things that you knew you weren't good at, but you've honed that that skill set? So what are some of the favorite things you've gotten great at over your your time?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I would say, really, just I don't know if I'm great at it, but effective communication, I feel like I got a sweet spot for it. It's it's not been good. I mean, like I said, like, a a 1000000 miles a minute. So really practicing that focus, which I'm always still trying to refine my talking points. That's been one that I've been, like, you know, I feel kinda proud about where I've I've started at because it was a lot more.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Public speaking, like, you know, you never like, getting up and talking to a 5,000, 10000 person audience is is scary. Like, it is so scary. You're like, what am I doing up here? Some people are natural at it. There's like, put the mic on, and let's go.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, like, you know, I play a natural at it, but I'm like, I'm scared. Every time I'm like, oh my god. Even this podcast this morning, I'm like, oh my god. Why am I doing a podcast?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Couldn't tell when you're when you're giving a talk at the the Netlify conference. How\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: was it? I know. I'm always scared. Always scared. But I would say, you know, public speaking is is one to crack over and, like, that's a hard one for leadership.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Public speaking alone, I just think it's it's not, you know, not natural to a lot of people and especially, like, hardcore technology is not very natural, but as leaders, you gotta be great at it. You gotta refine it. So it's all in that communication vein. And, the other part is just, like, humility. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm a driven person. Like, we all have ego. We all wanna, like, crush it, win and be the best. Man, it don't take nothing but a big smack to show you, like, yeah, you ate perfect. You broke stuff and, like, it ain't all roses.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I try to be, you know, I try to really have self reflection on how to show up and be better, but it takes a lot of humility because your ego can get in the way of your decision making. And, you know, sometimes when you're doing something so excited, you know, you you you you get that that tunnel vision. And I think as a leader, like, really taking those moments, self reflecting on how you show up, honing your communication, and putting your ego at the door is gonna make you effective. And, really, there's no secret recipe except, you know, continue to be smart, hungry, and humble with everything that you do, and and learn. You know?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That that's amazing. And, you know, being that we we kinda have a technical audience that views this podcast, individual contributors looking to make their way towards, you know, leadership and management. Are there any other, like, kinda as we come to the the end of this conversation, like, are there any other pieces of feedback besides the one that you've just given that that you'd like to leave with with the audience?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I would tell the I would tell these ICs, like, talk to your freaking manager. Build that rapport. Be transparent about your goals. Like, don't listen to me. If you wanna be a manager to because you just wanna be a manager, like, go explore it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, go. Even if it is for some reason that may not align with the reality, you're gonna learn by having that conversation out in the open. And if you're not sure, you can always start picking up some advanced things to give you those skill sets. Like, a lot of us have engineering levels and leadership levels, and they're in plus. As you go up and you get better, you get more natural leadership behaviors on your engineering levels as an IC and definitely on your manager levels.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so there's this expectation once you go across the chasm of senior engineer, like, you should have some leadership capabilities because your job is not just to execute, but it's to break down and execute. And to be able to break down and execute, you have to talk to people, you have to motivate them, and you have to align them. You may not be their manager, but believe me, you are just as influential, if not more. And if you really want to drive towards a position where you have more strategic input from a wider scale, again, it's about bridging into those things that you hadn't done before and honing those crafts while you have them right now. Do it now and and and and, you know, form that relationship.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Managers aren't all scary. Some are pretty good. Most of them are pretty good. And if they're terrible, do what everybody else does. Leave them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's alright.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's it's I think that's important. Communication is big no matter no matter whether it's at work or relationships or family or whatever it ends up being. I've I've really appreciated the conversation. I'm sure Pedro has as well. Is there any last minute things that you want to promote?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Maybe Netlify or your Etsy art store or analog tape backups?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, man. Analog tape backups. Yes. Come see me at veritas.dl. No.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>No. Oh, I'm gonna go Google that after this. No. I do. As Pedro said, he saw me at the Netlify conference.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Netlify is having our own developer focused conference, October 2nd 3rd at the amazing Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. So if any of y'all are listening and wanna come out and hang out with me and and see me pretend that I'm not scared even though I'm absolutely scared, apparently, Pedro said I was good at it. Thank you. That really actually helps. Come on down.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Come hang out with us. Tickets are on sale right now, and there's also, I heard, some codes out there. If somebody, you know, doesn't have all the cash to spend and still wants to come and hang. Awesome.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Well, thanks so much for your time, Dana.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I really appreciate it. Don't think I've smiled as much in any of these podcasts. You're just amazing to talk to. So definitely appreciate the time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Thank you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Well, I had a great time too, y'all, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Thanks for having me on.\u003C/p>","But I do feel like that connection between creativity and artistry is what developers and technologists crave. Like, what are we doing? We're we're creating a digital world that is for humans to have a presentation layer to experience new and amazing things, and that's that's living. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks. We have a wonderful guest today. I'll let you introduce yourself, Dana. But today, we have Dana, who is, an amazing person. So go ahead and introduce yourself. Howdy, y'all. Dana Lawson, CTO of Netlify, x GitHub, x Envisioner, x NewRelecan, x all the things. Great to be on the show. Thanks for having me, Pedro and John. Yeah. Absolutely. Of course. We had a great, intro conversation a couple weeks ago with your with you and really enjoyed the conversation. But for those of us who or for those of, the people who might be listening, why don't you let them know who Netlify is and kind of a little bit about what you do there? Netlify is a activities. My my daily oh, man. Oh, my daily activities. Spreadsheets and email. Duh. I'm an executive. No. Netlify is a composable web platform. We help enable web developers and creators alike, take their idea all the way to production. So we connect to your Git repositories. No matter what flavor of Git you use, we help you build, design, deploy with a global CDN network with, performance. It's pretty fun. And my daily duties I mean, I'm chief technology officer, but that means a lot of different stuff to a lot of different people. And as I joke, it is mainly spreadsheets and and emails and videos. But, honestly, my job is to inspire, lead, and and break through all the problems that we have, building amazing and compelling software. So I have the product design, and engineering teams. We all work together under my organization. Amazing. And I know that, you know, now you're you're an inspiring leader. You're a CTO of a company, but it, obviously wasn't always that way. There was, like, a path to get there. And I think you came from a much different background before. Right? We had a call about you being sort of an artist and that. So I'd love to hear sort of where your career started and your sort of trajectory and how you got here as a CTO. I mean, you know, I am so blessed to be surrounded with a lot of, like, the Silicon Valley greats. You know? And most of them went to MIT and Stanford, but not all of them. Some of them are dropouts too. But I did have the trajectory. You know, when I started out being a nerd, I was I was really into art. You know? I mean, I've always loved science and math because I'm one of those people. But, I grew up in Southeast New Mexico, Texas, and I was like, I'm gonna be Georgia O'Keefe. I'm gonna paint. I'm gonna draw. Parents weren't really thrilled about going to college for painting and drawing because that means being a poor starving artist. You gotta be really good. In the art world, you gotta be like you first of all, you gotta know some people. Especially when you're alive. Yeah. And you gotta be good. And I was mediocre and knew nobody. So, like, my odds weren't very good, and this is pre Internet. And so on a crazy whim, you know, I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? I joined the US army. How you go from art art school to the army? Hello? I'm a multifaceted person. And I really letters are the same. Right? Two letters, art army? I think that, you know, like, you know, it wasn't always great with spelling. I was more of a math person. I should have looked a little little bit closer. But, you know, it's funny because, like, you go and you sign up for the military in the United States, they make you take this test. Well, they used back in the day. I think they still do. I mean, I don't do army research anymore. It's called the ASVAB. And, essentially, it determines your military occupation. Right? Like, what are you good at? I scored really good on the math stuff. They didn't have an art section. I would have dominated. Go fig. They didn't have it. And this job came up in the late nineties. It's like information systems operator analysis developer, like everything tech because they didn't know what to call it. And I was like, computers need air conditioning. And here I am. Here I am because of that fateful choice of choosing air conditioning because computers needed it, my own, my own need to be comfortable. But, honestly, I loved it. I went to the US computer science school that they had made. I don't know if it's still there. It was in Georgia at the time, and it was an immersive, like, 12 months of, like, bare bones networking to all the way to, like, sea language. And then you get out and you're like, okay. And I got I got positioned to, to really create and administer all the military applications. And so from there, it's like, wow. But long story even longer, you know, I was IC. I've been I've been everything you can be in in developing and creating software. I was a sysadmin. I was dev ops. I was a SRE. Every letter in the alphabet that we attach to, to what our jobs are, I've done them like QA, TPM, TIM, PM. And, you know, I I just got bit with that leadership bug, and I really started going down the path of leading teams and not becoming an individual contributor, and then here we are. Yeah. That's a interesting way to get into a career. There's air conditioning there, so I'm gonna jump in. Did you find that that transition from being an artist, a former art student artist, and then going into army and tech, was that an easy transition for you? Did you really enjoy it? Did you pick it up quickly, or did you just really enjoy the air conditioning? I mean, one, I'm in Portland, Oregon, and and today is gonna be a 100 degrees. And I think this entire city is, like, scared. I mean, I'm looking out. I'm not going out today. It never gets this hot. But no. I mean, you know, I was already doing a lot of stuff in Adobe, like the early Adobe days in graphic arts, and, like, I had back back when Microsoft and front page. I remember that. Did y'all do any of that? Oh, it's probably a file. I love it. I love it too. Oh, well then, you know, so like I did web design when there wasn't like, you didn't know anything. Like we all know how to make websites. Like I was making some geo cities. I was doing that. I was a webmaster y'all. Alright? So but I always looked at through this lens of, like, being able to be creative. Like, that is all we actually are. Like, maybe it's not you hands to keyboards and you're taking those requirements, but a lot of the times, those early ideas are all you. And the way that we write code is individual to us even though the AIs come and take our jobs. It still is because you get to determine what goes where, how it functions, and how the end user is gonna deal with it. And, like, it can be language frameworks. I mean, you could do it in so many different ways, and it wasn't a weird push for me. It was actually really natural. I was just like, but I'm very curious. I'm one of those people that, like, it don't matter where I'm at. I'm gonna have a good time, and it's very annoying to other people. But to me, I'm like, you know what? That's just how I roll. You know? Because it's not the place you are. It's the people and experiences you have and and who you're with. And so I loved it. I I I I was just like, this is fascinating. I never, in a in a in my wildest dreams, ever thought I would be doing what I got to do. And getting to, like, live from man, the first job they gave me in the military was changing backup tapes. Like, they didn't trust me to do shit except change tapes, and they were smart because I had Yeah. I had ruined a bunch of servers at one point, but that's a whole different story. And so they're like, Lawson, you get to change the tapes. And so I got to incrementally, like, grow my skill set and apply it. And it was great. It was a great job. But I do feel like that connection between creativity and artistry is what developers and technologists crave. Like, what are we doing? We're we're creating a digital world that is for humans to have a presentation layer to experience new and amazing things, and that's that's living. Yeah. Yeah. And I I I feel that most of the people we talk to as well, on this podcast and otherwise just in our daily sales life. We're speaking to a highly technical audience, you know, selling our product, and most of them are creatives in some capacity. A lot of musicians, tons of musicians. I think almost everyone at Directus plays some kind of musical instrument. So I I definitely agree there. So what was that like? The yeah. Go ahead, John. Well, I just wanna really pause to to call out that you changed backup tapes. When I first got into tech and I realized that backups were being kept on tapes, literal tapes, I was so shocked because I I was selling data center equipment. I'm like, wait a second. Mhmm. People are still backing up on tapes. So Oh, yeah. I just had to call that out that that that brought back some memories from my past days that and probably still to this day. I know some obvious obviously, digital backups are huge, but, I'm impressed that you were changing those actual tapes because I always I knew those people existed, but you were one of them. Oh, man. It's it's it it was not a glamorous job. You literally go into a colo with a tray, and, you're like, it's the a day because you have a b tapes. Alright? And there's a software called Veritas. No. It's this software called Veritas. Oh my gosh. People are gonna have to go Google this shit. Alright. I sold that stuff. You sold Veritas. Oh, man. No. But, yeah, it is. It is amazing. Yeah. Tapes. Well, we we should have a whole, like, discussion one day about, like, tech of past, like, the tech museum. Yeah. Sorry, Pedro. Go ahead. I I didn't remember because I had to call it out. Yeah. No. Absolutely. Maybe that's another another show we could put on Directus TV digging into the tech past. You know? Yeah. No. That's awesome. And so what was that moment that for you kind of transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager? You you'd mentioned you sort of got into leadership. You really liked leading teams. What was that initial pivot point, from being an individual contributor to a leader? You know, I mean, I think a lot of of people that I've met that have been in these positions, there's something that honestly is natural that comes with it. And for me, it wasn't this, like, I wanna be a manager. I absolutely did not wanna tell people what to do. I can't like people telling me what to do, believe it or not. But I just wouldn't stop my mouth from running. And I was like, we should do this. We should do this. Here's why. And I'm like, on my soapbox just saying, here's why we're here's here's how we're gonna unlock this. And they're like, listen. Why don't you just tell everybody what to do? You're doing it anyway. They don't want a sideline manager. You might as well just be it. And I was like, well, you know, I've never done that. I mean, I've done, I guess, different leadership stuff because naturally you have those opportunities in the military that kind of force you into, like, these these different things to do. And I don't know. I've had jobs and jobs of days past. And, I just feel like, you know, at that moment, I was like, oh, okay. And from there, it was just like, okay. How do I change this directory? The hardest transition, I think, really was, you know, when you become into leadership and you start leading teams, a lot of us have been individual contributors, and you're like, wait a minute. And and if you have a good culture, I hate that us versus them culture. It's like your boss is just an adult too trying to make money. There ain't no us versus them. I mean, if there is, like, go somewhere else. And so I really just would approach it. The hardest part for me was not separating myself and saying, oh, you know, now this is my new role, but more of, like, this isn't my role. Like, that's not your like, for me, it was like that that's not your job no more. And that's still hard for me where you could get so immersed with just, like, in the flow zone of of writing code. And you're like, as a leader, like, yeah. You can as a frontline manager, you may do some of that, but that's not your job no more. Like, if you wanna be great, your job is to empower, enable, align, and motivate, and realize what your role is. And maybe you're a team where you're a player coach and you get to still do that, but that's not your primary. Your engineers, that's their primary. And that was the hardest transition for me making that. But to get to that, I mean, it kinda came a little naturally. And then from there, it just was like that that hunger to take on more. And, you know, it was funny because, again, I never expected, like, you know, a lot of people are like, one day, I will run my own company or I'm gonna be a CEO. I was like, no way. I never thought that. I just always wanted to do amazing things with amazing people and and hopefully change the world. Like, to me, that's more important. But, yeah, I mean, it wasn't it wasn't a hard trajectory. I think, again, like, separating what you used to do seems to be the hardest part for people that transition. And there's only been, like, 1 or 2 times in my career where I've ever met anybody that was like, I wanna be a manager. And I'm like, what? Like, that's your goal? Like, why? Like, why do you wanna do that? And and usually, when they wanna be a manager and they're that resound, it's for the wrong reasons, like, straight up. It's not it not all the time, but I mean, I've heard one person's like, oh, I wanna be a manager. So why do you wanna be a manager? Because I could tell everybody what to do, and I I could quit fighting battles and, like, we'll just I could just get it done. And I was like, what planet do you live in? Like, because people I said I said, welcome to management. Your job is just fighting battles and trying to get, you know, people to to to agree and commit or disagree and commit, but commit is your out is your long goal. And so, like, it's you really feel like a used car salesman. Half the time going like, no. So I no. That price is not gonna work. I'm sorry. This is not gonna work. Yeah. See, it's not if you have a fantasy of command and control and leadership, like, again, you gotta find that the culture that that's how that's how they vibe. They're out there. But like most places where a lot of people are happy to work, they don't want that. Yeah. You mentioned putting down some of the tasks that you had previously done as an IC and and finding that a little bit of a struggle to put those tasks down. And then you also mentioned kind of fitting right into leadership. Was that was there any learning curve, or is your personality one where you whatever the task is on your plate, you'll figure out and do it? And then I guess the second part of that question is, were there parts? Because you you didn't go in searching for leadership. So did you get into leadership and managing teams and say, oh, man. This spreadsheet stuff sucks. You know? Like, I don't like this part, but I'll do it anyways. But so I guess what was that learning curve like, and were there parts where you're like, oh, I didn't even know I'd have to do this stuff? Oh, man. You know, I think the actual learning curve is is not knowing what you do need to shift and having to grow into that on the other side of the house because you can really look really shallowly and be like, well, what's the big difference? You're just breaking down tasks and giving projects out. That's what leadership is. Absolutely not. I think the learning curve is really dialing into, okay, well, how do I really start having effective communication? Like, obviously, I was somewhat good at it. I'm now in this position, but how do I refine it? How do I talk to different personalities? Because as a tech leader, an IC, you're just talking to mostly other engineers, sometimes product people, but they're still your people. Right? Now when you become into leadership, you have different stakeholders. And I think the biggest opportunity to learn is to understand how to speak their language, how to communicate effectively, and how to distill that information down so that there's still alignment between both parties so that you're not communicating in a way where this side hears something different than this side. And sometimes that can happen because breaking down really audacious technical things for people that are more on the business side, sometimes when they're motivated by different things, they'll hinder different things. And the example I give is, like, you know, let's say a success manager comes to you and says, so where are we at with that bug? And and and the engineer is like, well, we're gonna be code complete in 2 days, and we're gonna ship it tomorrow. Great. You're shipping it tomorrow. It's like, no. No. No. No. No. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Yes. Technically, we are shipping it into staging and integration tomorrow, and there's still more behind that. And what you mean by code complete means something different to go to market. So you have to be really that translator or you're gonna cause friction. And as a manager, guess what your only job really, really, really, really is, is to remove friction. At the at the end of the day, your job is to remove friction. And the way that you do that is to to the the the morning's problems that cascade into the night. And you're constantly being agile and saying, where do I help people not run into anything that's impeding them from what they're trying to do? That's really all you gotta do. So I think that was the hardest kind of, like, is is is and then and then as you go further into it, right, like your frontline manager, you're like, okay. Maybe I'm talking to support. Maybe I'm talking to marketing. You go to director. Now the table stakes are like, now you're now you're learning the economics of operating and running a business. Right? K? Now it's like contribution margins, cost of goods sold, CapEx, OPEX, all these fin financial terms that you think we have acronyms? Go talk to an accountant. They have just as many. K? And sales, I don't even know if you're talking about half time. BDR, SDR. I'm like, I don't know. I do now though, but that's the stuff that like as an engineer, you don't learn that. Nobody taught there's no school to teach. There's no engine. We can go like I said, you can go to Stanford, MIT. They ain't gonna teach you about how to look at a financial forecast weighted against 2 growth motions and and outputs and forecasted. Like, it's all things that maybe you took a a side business class, but most of the time you're learning it. You're learning it on the job as you as you move up that corporate ladder. Yeah. That's wild. I think that, you know, I I just personally, that's something that I've been focused on a lot is really understanding different points of view, and it's something that I sort of I don't know. I mean, maybe it's the Libra in me just trying to, like, balance everyone and play like the the diplomat in most situations. But what do you think that you pull from, to to have that sort of knowledge now and being that translator and being able to effectively communicate and and be that diplomat between, you know, your teams? I mean, I have a big mouth, Pedro, so, like, you wouldn't believe this, but, like, active listening is so important and really just practicing on my mind runs a 1000000 1000000 miles a minute. Like, I am like I've I've main I've I've been able to challenge my ADHD into something productive, which is good, not good. Okay? But it's really about taking that moment and forcing myself to really go into active listening mode and pushing against those instinctual, I need to go. I need to execute. I need to push because you're so trained to have maximum productivity. And and in software engineering, it's about that tempo of delivery. And then when you're on the other side and you're working through really how do I express this to 100 of 1000 of users and get to start internally with my team first, like, it it's isn't it is again an art. It is it is something that you have to inherently start to develop. And what I do is I try to spend time just learning their business, understanding their workflows, putting on that product research mindset that, you know, we have as engineers and technologists to say, well, if I wanted to understand my ideal customer profile, well, my ideal customer right now is my partner over here on this side of the business. How do they work? How do they operate? How can I meet them where they are? And so also just, like, talking to other mentors and, like, people and, like, getting advice and, like, seeking feedback. I don't think I've ever not had a a, you know, an employer review tell me you're too verbose. I mean, it's a work in progress. I'll always be too verbose. But, like, really taking in that feedback and and trying to understand where we can be better, so that self reflection, those 3 sixties, so all those things that you can do and bringing them in together to understand. But I think active listening, really, which there's a whole bunch of techniques out there to do that. No. Absolutely. And and do you think that your your experience and your previous background in, you know, the alphabet soup of all the roles has helped in that? Like, you've had a sort of understand the different roles that you that you manage and the different roles that you sort of sell to internally and understand the languages that they speak? Oh, yeah. I mean, I love it. That's where I always encourage people to get out of their comfort zone. Like, do it. Like, I've done so many things that I never won obviously, was qualified for. So thank you to all those people out there that believed in me, because, like, I don't know if I would've put myself in that position, but here we are. And it's really about taking opportunities and and and finding those spaces within what you know and filling the gap. Right? Like, it's really human nature to double down in the areas where we're comfortable, where we can sit and say, I can just crush it. And in times of duress, we do that. We seek that comfort in in in repetitiveness and consistency. I don't like it. I get bored. I like it sometimes. And most of the time, like, when I'm getting comfortable, I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta go solve. I gotta go find my next problem. And so I push and I've had the opportunity through the alphabet soup to do stuff that was kind of orthogonal to what I already had known. Like I got a wonderful opportunity to do business development, like pure business development. And I when I got tapped to do that, I was like, are you sure? I was like, I have been an I have been an engineering leader for a 1000000 years. You want me to do biz dev? Like, that's on the other it is on the other side of the house. I do not even know. Yeah. But they're like, no. Our business is talking to developer. Our business is expansion. Our business is helping, you know, really the value of our platform be open to everyone. And so when you think of business development, there's nobody better than a technologist that's right in it sometimes. However, you still need that other side of business acumen and that understanding of the sales operation and motion to be able to be effective because at the end of the day, the stakes are different, and and it's just a different type of ball game than delivering software. And that experience alone, I'm like, like, you can't go to you you can't go to school to get to learn that. And to me, it just strengthens that the inner team empathy that you need to have a startup because you're all pushing for the same goal and it's gonna be uncomfortable even if you are in your sweet spot. You you're gonna have moments in your trajectory where you're like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? And and having empathy holistically helps everybody be better to deliver what they're doing. You can't just have a well oiled machine on one side of your house and then the other not be working or it's all gonna fail. No. I I absolutely agree in it. And, you know, I've seen that at the different companies that I've been in. Sometimes it's hard to align, especially when it's the technical teams versus the less technical teams and having being able to speak that common language. Is that something that obviously, they don't teach that in school, like you've mentioned. Is that something that you've taught as a manager to the the folks that you manage on the technical side, like balancing, you know, the technical acumen with the people skills and sort of the the goals of the business, which are, you know, ultimately to to earn revenue and keep everyone employed? Heck. Yeah. I mean, I think that's my number one job. Right? Like, I'm always trying to get my leaders to work me out of a job. Like, the best the best, you know, example of leadership is the person behind you taking your job or them going on to do the job you were doing. That's it. That's all I live for is to see see the people that I had the opportunity to partner with, go on and do bigger, better things, and me having a small little piece of that narrative. And hopefully being positive. I know it ain't all roses, but I think that's something that you have to do because it doesn't, you know, I talk about, oh, it all comes naturally. This is the part of the house that don't come naturally. This is the part where you have to be curious. You have to have your humility low and do a little homework, do a little research, and and try to meet them in the common ground. And I try to do that. Like, a lot of us have been utilizing, you know, objectives, key results, or other frameworks, and they can get so convoluted with with what you see the lens of the world. And as an executive, it's about that abstraction so that everybody can understand it. If they can't, then why why? And so from a manager training perspective, manager enablement is so important unless, you know, I don't think a lot of places are gonna get managers and be like, listen. I expect you to be a career manager. So, like, I ain't gonna teach you nothing new. Just keep the job rolling. Like, I don't know. I've been around for a hot minute. That's how it was in my day when we had cubicle cities. You were just, like, waiting for somebody to retire to get your job, to get the next job. It's not like that, and it hasn't been like that. And so, again, as a leader, if you have your goal set on really raising the bar on your team and getting them to the next level, it's finding those opportunities and those skill gaps and then teaching them that that common language. And there's so many there's so many darn resources because it's not just business speak, but when you have also a growing company and a global customer base, you also need to know culturally, like, the nuances. And there's some great books out there. I always recommend the cultural map. It's it's a book that helps you distinguish really how if you're like an American, how you show up or Western society. And it's really an interesting read. And I think those are some of the things that I try to encourage my leadership team as they're working on that voice is be customer centric, internal and external. And that means business acumen and speak, but also just human to human and understanding how they how they were brought up in this world and how they culturally represent themselves. So I think it goes hand in hand. So many nuances to it because, you know, yeah, it's not just internally between the different teams and the way that they speak, but also culturally, you know, you've got companies that are now global with remote work just being sort of the the default in a lot of these areas. So maintaining that company culture is also important, and these small little things can cause a rub between, you know, the Americans and the Europeans. They have totally different styles of work life balance and and culture and everything. So, yeah, I think that's that's really important. Are there any specific, like, exercises or resources that, or, you know, strategies that you implement within your teams to try and keep that cohesive culture. I mean, I mean, definitely, you know, we we try to do enablements and trainings, not just for managers, but for people, and they cross the chasm from technical skills to soft skills. Like, you need both, whether it's public speaking. Because public speaking is actually another good opportunity to refine your message house, your internal message house. If you can't say it in an elevator pitch, then you're probably not speaking common enough language so that people can understand your value. So I always recommend, like, get some speaker training. Believe it or not, I've had it. They teach you some tips. They're really, really good. But in addition to that, I would also say that, you know, some good resources would be writing things down with clear lines of ownership to also help clear up some of the ambiguity. Because, again, when you're talking about multicultural teams, from many, many different countries and and and English is second language for peeps. I mean, at Netlify, I think we have 17 countries represented in our in our little amazing startup. That's a lot of different people from a lot of different places doing a lot of different things. As we utilize tools like the DAISY, drivers, approvers, contributors, inform, and these frameworks so that you can drive decision making. And sometimes you have to leverage just written. Because maybe maybe maybe maybe you're having a block where there's friction within the the spoken communication. A lot of people can read better than they can speak, self included. Right? Like, I can I can I can speak I can read Spanish all day and I can speak it? But, I think that there's those opportunities too and other things that you can utilize to find that alignment. So I'm a big fan of DCs and RACES to really ensure you have clear ownership and that that's been, understood. And then also, you know, really just pushing a written culture. Like, don't keep stuff in the ether. And there's so many come on now. Like, there's so many tools that do it for you. Like, 4 years ago, we didn't have a little AI recorder that did a transcript and a summary. You can do all that now. Don't tell me you can't. And I I tell people, I'm like, you're not comfortable. I don't know. Go use go go go use your your model or your choice, your chatbot of choice. I don't care. It's cool. I training even as a training tool. Right? Like, you can have conversations with these things, and that's only improving. I mean, I've done job interviews even where I'm like, simulate this, Yes. Simulate. You're the you're the you're interviewing me for this role. Here's the resume. Copy paste. Right? And have a little conversation. Those those types of things can even be be pretty Use them. Use the tools. Like, we're all learning them. And, like, again, that's a double edged sword. You're like, I get to understand this, whatever we're saying AI is and how to be better. And I think, you know, you gotta be a technophile. You know, that's why you're in this role. You gotta stay on the latest. You gotta love it. You gotta know it. And I I do. I encourage it. I'm like, go. Go go go go ask go ask go ask the AI for you. At the end of the day, like, refining your communication skill set. I I keep seeing these ads for, like, Bob Iger's master class or whatever. I think that the thing he's saying in these ads is just like your your vision or your idea is only as good as your ability to articulate it. And, you know, back to your point, it's like having that ability to to communicate those ideas. If you can't do it verbally, like, at least writing them down and continuing to practice those so that you can win over your team so you could become a better a better leader, better even a better individual contributor. Like, everyone's got ideas. So, your ability to communicate that with others, I think, is is probably the point here. You better believe it. I mean, shoot. Like, a lot of, a lot of engineers have that that leadership charisma, and they want to refine that side of the house. Let them, like that's the I mean, again, I think that comes back to the harder part. You know, we are so so lucky to have this advanced toolset around us that we can go and source information. We can ask questions. We can autofill. We can move, but you gotta put in the work on the other side. And so, like, I definitely see, you know, an opportunity with getting people more comfortable and, again, utilizing the tool sets to do so. And that's where, you know, like you said, using it to, like, mock interview. Like, yes. Go do that. It's it it some of them are good enough. I mean, some of them are are not great enough, but it gives you also some which is interesting, I think, because people were like, oh, I don't trust the AI and the models, but it's private. It it's better than going into like, can we role play in Slack? Like, nobody wants to do that. Like, you know using even, like, there's an app that I've been using called Sonja. I actually spoke to the team a couple weeks ago. They were gathering some feedback, but it's an AI therapy app. And what I kind of started to realize, and maybe this is what some of these apps are sort of you know, they've they've modeled everything after their CBT techniques, and it has, like, an in-depth knowledge of, therapeutic techniques. But what I've realized is there's this barrier when you're talking to a human. Obviously, you're presenting the best version of yourself. You're not being as raw as you could be. Mhmm. And there's always some sort of, you know, I don't know, like subjectivism on the other side. Mhmm. And you know that somebody's, you know, judging you in a way where when you talk to the AI, there's zero judgment. You're talking to a computer. Your mind sort of knows it. So you speak to it a little differently. And for something like therapy or something like training, I remember back in college we used to do these sales role plays. Those things are terrifying. You're doing it in front of the class with the professor and it's like, you know, you're getting graded on this. And, to do that with AI, I think would be, you know, it's just such a such an improvement. Even if it's not perfect, it's it's still going to at least let you drop the guard, speak in your natural voice, and and learn effectively. Yeah. I I also think with AI tools and tools in general or I guess when you're dealing with humans, people are afraid to make mistakes in front of other humans. And so with an AI tool or a software tool, you're like, oh, I just made a mistake. I can just redo it again. You know, as a salesperson or as a if I do code wrong and I'm just testing it, it's easy to it's easy to make a mistake. So, Dana, do you find that you know, you you mentioned encouraging people to go try a ai tools and encouraging people to go test new things. Do you find that after you encourage them a couple times, they're more more willing to go and try new things on their own, or they're more willing to kind of understand that making mistakes is okay. Because similar to what you're saying, Pedro, is when I try something with an AI tool and I make a mistake, it's, oh, next turn. Let's go to the next turn. So I feel like the the stigma of making mistakes is removed when you when you have a barrier removed like that. So do you encourage your team members, Dana, to go and try new things and then find them down the road trying more and more things without having to be encouraged to go try those things? Oh, definitely, man. I love growth mindset. Like, you know, and and and what it comes down to is putting that human imposter syndrome, shame, or what other baggage you have thinking you ain't good enough down and building a place where people can do that and with psychological safety. Like, I totally I tell them all the time. I was like, y'all know that was written by AI because it's so it has all the right commas. It's not saying random shit. It's it's actually a little bit more, more focused. And I just try as a leader to not not be embarrassed about it either. It's like, hey. I'm human too. And I think, like, as as somebody that's creating and and producing the next set of advanced developer tools, you best know. Like, how how could you come? Like, where's your street cred? Like, people are using this stuff. I think you have to be really public about it, but also, like, be skeptical. Like like, it's not perfect. I don't a 100% trust it either. But again, I think the benefits are more than the cons right now if you utilize it like a tool and really put the right boundaries of how you're using it to function. But again, for me as a leader, it's taking out the hesitation because you gotta remember. Right? Like, tech has been through it. People are freaking like, you know, it's a doom scroll of, like, what's what's what's busted up in Silicon Valley right now. We're having a moment. I hope we're on the other side of it. Those feds cut that interest rate. But I think, like, people are paranoid. Not everybody, but, you know, a lot of people are like, hey. You know, the economy's unstable. Like, I don't wanna be found out. I'm like, no way. You're gonna be better. Like, if our number one goal again is to remove friction and increase productivity, you you should be doing your part. And, again, I don't think a lot of it is on the the hard skills of, like, utilizing these tool sets to be better. But on the soft skills, having those those moments to be like, I wanna ask it this really dumb question that maybe I wasn't comfortable going in Slack and asking it, or maybe I don't wanna even talk to my mentor. You know, 1, you know, don't put all your eggs into that AI basket and trust it out. But I think as a guiding point, like, you're gonna start self serving those answers to yourself. And who doesn't wanna self serve? Like, nobody wants to talk I mean, I love talking to people because, like, that's what I do, and I'm from the 1900. But people this day and age, they won't be talking to nobody. Okay? Yeah. And, like, that's cool. They're gonna talk to you when they want to, but they're gonna be more comfortable behind the keyboard. And we just have to embrace that and find different ways that people do communicate, whether it is short form video or, say, other AI tools, because that's the part that they don't teach you. And as being a leader, like, you have to pay attention to societal norms to understand how the current generation and the next are are taking in information, especially if you're a provider of how to do that. And if we're in software, we all play a part in that experience. Yeah. I agree. And I I think that at the end of the day, you know, asking like you were saying, asking the AI, maybe some of the questions that you think might be dumb or, you know, getting sort of that, introductory knowledge about something out of the way. Maybe it does, if used correctly, break down the barriers between human to human connection where it's just like, you know what? I can actually do some of this research on my own in a very quick and concise way before I come to the table with my ideas or Yeah. Yeah. So How how how important and I think this is a good a good thought on leadership. How important do you think it is to cultivate a a culture internally where, people aren't afraid to ask those what might be considered a stupid question. Because I've I've in the world of alphabet soup, there's so many acronyms you never know. And some people might be afraid to ask that question. What does BDR even mean? Or, I mean, I hear acronyms all day. I don't know what they mean. So how important is it to build a culture where people are comfortable asking those questions to other humans? You know, you can go ask AI. But I think as a leader, you also wanna have that culture where people aren't afraid to ask questions because in the end, they just wanna be smarter. I mean, I think it's a it's a it's a big challenge, and you're always fighting it because, you know, as your team scales, you lose some of those opportunities for interpersonal relationships. Right? We've all heard Dunbar's number of a 150. You can't know everybody past that. I disagree. I don't know. I came from a small town, and I knew everyone. But, but I do think that you it starts from the top. You know, your job as a leader, especially as an executive leader, is to set the tone and the pace. And, like, if you can show up and be your true authentic self, that gives people permission around you to do so. And that means you're gonna probably f up. You're gonna say something that you're embarrassed about. Like, trust me. There's not a week that goes by that I'm just like, oh, Dana Lawson. Why did that come out of your mouth? Why are you you? But you know what? I am me, and you're you, and I want you to be you at work because putting energy into being somebody else is taking away from your productivity. I ain't got time for that. I want you to spend those mental calories on on my stuff, which is getting shit done. And I think you have to really, again, make it really known. You have to practice what you preach, and then give people those opportunities to find the psychological safety for them to be okay doing that. Again, you know, you can't you could just saunder people's experiences. You're not living them. They're theirs. So you have to just kind of think about, well, how how would somebody that is 12 hours on the other side of the world take this information if they don't get it from me? How do we form a relationship? So again, establishing a written culture, you know, coming from the top down, being your true authentic self, that means messing up and being being a little scared sometimes you are. It's okay. That, like, that again, that gives permission to mess up too because humans are fallible. But then finding other avenues where people can feel safe to be able to share and and communicate, whether it's surveys, Slack messages, written, town halls, q and a's. Do all the things because you're gonna need to do a wide splatter to get all the differences on how people need to be felt and heard. But, again, I also try to encourage that, like, one to 1, like, come and ask me. You know? I when my AI startup, AI Migos, you'll pay a premium for the real Dana Lawson. What the day Dana bought, you know, I don't know, $20, I'll give you yes or no's. I joke about that, but, like, I want people to come to me because there are some things that you're just not gonna get on the other end, but utilize it as a tool. Practice. Like, get yourself comfortable. But when it comes from leadership, there's nothing more powerful than people see that you're authentic, genuine, and real. Because I don't know. People can read it when you're full of baloney. Like, you think they ain't. They are. And maybe not everybody is, but you got some skeptics out there going like, that person full of shit. And so, you know, I just say, don't be. Be you. Yeah. I love this idea of, like the Dana bot or like imagine the CTO at a company of thousands of people, that clearly it doesn't scale. You can't have a one on one conversations with everyone in the company or even the CEO or something like that. But cloning cloning that person's personality. And anyone now can have a one on one with the CEO at any time Oh, man. By the CTO. And if if you want to book the real thing, like, yeah, that that may happen as well, but anyone at every rag is gonna be crazy. Right? You're rag. You're like, wait a minute. No. Let me let me make my rag on, lots of howdy's in y'alls. I but here's this you know, I think that that's gonna happen. That's what Hollywood's scared of. I don't blame them. But, you know, the the reality is is, like, you can't take away human to human. And as a leader again, you just have to you have to stay in line with what's happening out there and who your people are and what's important to them. And right now, you know, it's it's not super easy. There's so much going on. I mean, we were all in a pandemic for 4 years. That was probably the hardest 4 years of leadership for a lot of people because everybody on the planet was fearful. Nobody knew what was going on. And the stuff that you did know was happening, you didn't know what was really happening because there's so much information and be blasted at you. And it was a really interesting and I believe challenging time for a lot of people, you know, separating that work and life balance. And, like, the world's just gonna continue to get more complex, and there's always stuff going on. And, you know, you can only play your part and do so much. So I always say, like, you know, like, while you're at work, I want you to not have to worry about some of those things, but focus in, get all those chores, get the friction out of place, and just feel good about producing. Because I think a lot of humans feel good when they produce because that's what working and living is, is seeing the output of your energy. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think sometimes that's important to remember is to still be able to contribute in certain ways. If we go back to a part at the beginning of this conversation, you mentioned having to learn to put down some things that you used to do as an IC. I've seen CTO calendars before, so you might not have any spare time these days. Do you still get to contribute at all? Do you ever get to code or do anything fun kind of to go back into your IC role, Or is it just all spreadsheets these days? If if if I touch production, like, the team would be like, smack. Get out of here. Come in. What do you what are you doing in here? So no. But no. I do on-site. Like, we're there's always cool stuff coming out. Right? Do I do it at work? Mostly on the architectural level, I do a lot of, design work implementation and and that piece of it. But day to day, like, I get to I I have to try it out. Like, we release something. I'm the first person that's going down there, and I'm like, oh, look at this new Astro template. And I'm a terrible web developer. Let me just be really real with y'all. Like, not my forte. More back end. But that's why I love doing web development because I'm so bad at it. And all these tools for they they they make it a little easier. So I'm always trying that stuff out. I'm the 1st to give it a go. I'm like, oh, but, you know, I think you have to know what you're doing and pushing. Like, Netlify, we're always pushing out these core primitives that are really kind of nascent to specific things that you do within, how data transmits from the Internet to your computer and so forth. And there's so much to do on. And so to really get that deep, you you gotta kinda get in there and know what's going on on on different levels of the stack. And so I think, again, you know, for myself, it can't just be all the fun soft stuff. As I say, I'm basically Napoleon Dynamite's brother Kip. I love people, but I love technology too. And so on my free time, because I get my peoples at work, believe it or not, I do a lot of stuff on the side and I'm always trying it out. But, yeah, I mean, it's like bits and bobs there. I've gotten really good at macros though. So if you do need some spreadsheet food, like, you know, like, call me. You're entering those, Excel competitions. You're like, I know how to do that. Shoot. No. I'm like and now I'm I'm telling you, this is one area where I'm like, thank you AI. I'm like, no more. No more. No mas. I mean, I could do it, but why would I? When I can be like, the train left the station at 2 PM and the other train left at 3 PM. And there's a person that gets I mean, I love it. AI is good at that kind of stuff. I hated those questions in school. It just was like, I don't it doesn't matter. Are they gonna crash into each other or not if they're not? It's like spreadsheets. You're like, if I take if I take column e and then I divide it by c and then I pivot it to your yeah. I know. I don't do it. Yeah. So so what's what's some of the favorite things that you've learned in your climbing to CTO? You know, what's some I guess, since this is kind of a podcast on leadership, what are some of the best leadership things that you've learned that you had no idea you would need to learn or maybe some things that you knew you weren't good at, but you've honed that that skill set? So what are some of the favorite things you've gotten great at over your your time? I would say, really, just I don't know if I'm great at it, but effective communication, I feel like I got a sweet spot for it. It's it's not been good. I mean, like I said, like, a a 1000000 miles a minute. So really practicing that focus, which I'm always still trying to refine my talking points. That's been one that I've been, like, you know, I feel kinda proud about where I've I've started at because it was a lot more. Public speaking, like, you know, you never like, getting up and talking to a 5,000, 10000 person audience is is scary. Like, it is so scary. You're like, what am I doing up here? Some people are natural at it. There's like, put the mic on, and let's go. And, like, you know, I play a natural at it, but I'm like, I'm scared. Every time I'm like, oh my god. Even this podcast this morning, I'm like, oh my god. Why am I doing a podcast? Couldn't tell when you're when you're giving a talk at the the Netlify conference. How was it? I know. I'm always scared. Always scared. But I would say, you know, public speaking is is one to crack over and, like, that's a hard one for leadership. Public speaking alone, I just think it's it's not, you know, not natural to a lot of people and especially, like, hardcore technology is not very natural, but as leaders, you gotta be great at it. You gotta refine it. So it's all in that communication vein. And, the other part is just, like, humility. Right? I'm a driven person. Like, we all have ego. We all wanna, like, crush it, win and be the best. Man, it don't take nothing but a big smack to show you, like, yeah, you ate perfect. You broke stuff and, like, it ain't all roses. And I try to be, you know, I try to really have self reflection on how to show up and be better, but it takes a lot of humility because your ego can get in the way of your decision making. And, you know, sometimes when you're doing something so excited, you know, you you you you get that that tunnel vision. And I think as a leader, like, really taking those moments, self reflecting on how you show up, honing your communication, and putting your ego at the door is gonna make you effective. And, really, there's no secret recipe except, you know, continue to be smart, hungry, and humble with everything that you do, and and learn. You know? Yeah. That that's amazing. And, you know, being that we we kinda have a technical audience that views this podcast, individual contributors looking to make their way towards, you know, leadership and management. Are there any other, like, kinda as we come to the the end of this conversation, like, are there any other pieces of feedback besides the one that you've just given that that you'd like to leave with with the audience? I would tell the I would tell these ICs, like, talk to your freaking manager. Build that rapport. Be transparent about your goals. Like, don't listen to me. If you wanna be a manager to because you just wanna be a manager, like, go explore it. Like, go. Even if it is for some reason that may not align with the reality, you're gonna learn by having that conversation out in the open. And if you're not sure, you can always start picking up some advanced things to give you those skill sets. Like, a lot of us have engineering levels and leadership levels, and they're in plus. As you go up and you get better, you get more natural leadership behaviors on your engineering levels as an IC and definitely on your manager levels. And so there's this expectation once you go across the chasm of senior engineer, like, you should have some leadership capabilities because your job is not just to execute, but it's to break down and execute. And to be able to break down and execute, you have to talk to people, you have to motivate them, and you have to align them. You may not be their manager, but believe me, you are just as influential, if not more. And if you really want to drive towards a position where you have more strategic input from a wider scale, again, it's about bridging into those things that you hadn't done before and honing those crafts while you have them right now. Do it now and and and and, you know, form that relationship. Managers aren't all scary. Some are pretty good. Most of them are pretty good. And if they're terrible, do what everybody else does. Leave them. It's alright. Well, yeah, it's it's I think that's important. Communication is big no matter no matter whether it's at work or relationships or family or whatever it ends up being. I've I've really appreciated the conversation. I'm sure Pedro has as well. Is there any last minute things that you want to promote? Maybe Netlify or your Etsy art store or analog tape backups? Oh, man. Analog tape backups. Yes. Come see me at veritas.dl. No. No. Oh, I'm gonna go Google that after this. No. I do. As Pedro said, he saw me at the Netlify conference. Netlify is having our own developer focused conference, October 2nd 3rd at the amazing Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. So if any of y'all are listening and wanna come out and hang out with me and and see me pretend that I'm not scared even though I'm absolutely scared, apparently, Pedro said I was good at it. Thank you. That really actually helps. Come on down. Come hang out with us. Tickets are on sale right now, and there's also, I heard, some codes out there. If somebody, you know, doesn't have all the cash to spend and still wants to come and hang. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for your time, Dana. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Don't think I've smiled as much in any of these podcasts. You're just amazing to talk to. So definitely appreciate the time. Thank you. Well, I had a great time too, y'all, and I hope you have a wonderful day. 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